My cousin sent me this recipe to try and I was a bit skeptical at first because eggless recipes sometimes turn out really doughy and dry… but oh my word, this one’s a real winner! It’s so soft and full of heartwarming flavours!

Ingredients:

1 cup (150 g) whole wheat / brown flour (do not sift)
1 cup (150 g) all-purpose / cake flour
2 ½ tsp (7.5 g) baking powder
½ tsp (2.5 g) bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp (2.5 g) salt
½ tsp (1.5 g) ground cinnamon
½ tsp (1.5 g) ground anise seed (optional)
½ tsp (1.5 g) ground black pepper
¼ tsp (1 g) ground nutmeg
¼ tsp (1 g) ground cloves
1 ½ cups (375 mL) milk
1 cup (300 g) brown sugar / honey
Finely grated zest of 1 orange / naartjie
¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter, melted

Method:

Sift dry ingredients into brown flour.
Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl and then add to dry ingredients. Note: I melted the butter in a pot first and then added the rest of the wet ingredients to make a smooth mixture.
Grease a medium-sized loaf tin and then pour the batter in. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 60 min, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaf cool in its tin for 30 minutes and then turn it out to cool completely on a rack.
You can also add a glaze to the top of the cake, but I prefer the cake without it – it tastes just as good without all that extra sugar ;)

Glaze

Ingredients: ¾ cup icing sugar, ¼ cup water, ½ tsp vanilla extract.
Heat glaze ingredients until all have combined into a smooth mixture, then pour over hot loaf.
Store in an airtight container once it has cooled down completely.

Spice loaf