Lumberjack Cake

I made this on Sunday and whilst it took a long time to cook (especially when you have impatient children watching the oven!), it was worth the wait.  I convinced myself it was healthy too, what with all that fruit in :)  

When I told DS that it was called a Lumberjack cake, he said "a Numberjacks cake?  Wow!"  I had to disappoint him and let him know it wasn't anything to do with our CBeebies friends and then explained what a lumberjack is.  To which he said "oh, does the cake have wood in it then?"  Sigh...

Ingredients
3 small eating apples, peeled and diced
200g dried dates (stones removed), chopped
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250ml boiling water
125g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
220g caster sugar
1 egg
225g plain flour

Topping
60g butter
100g brown sugar
125ml milk
50g desiccated coconut

Method
Put the chopped apple & dates into a bowl and add the bicarb and the water.  Cover the bowl with clingfilm and let soak for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the butter, vanilla essence, sugar and egg in a bowl until light and fluffy.  After the allotted soaking time, add the apple & date mixture into the creamed butter mix and stir in the flour.

Pour the mix into a greased tray-bake pan or similar and bake at 180 (fan) for 50-60 minutes.

When the cake is ready to come out, add the topping ingredients to a small pan and heat slowly.  Remove the cake from the oven and pour / spread the topping evenly on the cake.  Return to the oven for a further 20-30 minutes.

Let the cake stand for 5 minutes (if you can bear it) after removing it from the oven before slicing.

I just ate the final piece tonight (2 days after making it) and it was still deliciously moist so it keeps well in a tupperware container.