Chocolate Special: Apricot & Ginger Chocolate Loaf

Here I am with the second episode! After the warm chocolare tart, here the recipe of this loaf cake...still by Pierre Hermè...still taken from his book "Chocolate Desserts".

APRICOT & GINGER CHOCOLATE LOAF CAKE

180gr Plain flour
40gr Cocoa powder
1 Tsp Baking powder
125gr Dried apricots, cut into small chunks
165gr Sugar
140gr Almond Past (*)
4 Large eggs, at room temperature
150gr Whole milk, at room temperature
70gr Plain Chocolate,cut into small chunks
55gr Stem ginger, cut into small chunks
180gr BurroUnsalted butter, melted and cooled

(*) These are the ingredients of the original recipe. For those of you who read from the US, you can get the almond paste in any supermarket where it is sold in cans under the Solo label. Here in England, I couldn't find it so I decided that the 140gr required could be replaced by 70gr sugar and 70gr ground almonds.
So the ingredients with my little variation are:

180gr Plain flour
40gr Cocoa powder
1 Tsp Baking powder
125gr Dried apricots, cut into small chunks
200gr Sugar (165gr + 70gr = 235gr, but I decreased it)
70-80gr Ground almonds
4 Large eggs, at room temperature
150gr Whole milk
70gr Plain chocolate, cut into small chunks
55gr Stem ginger, cut into small chunks
180gr Unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and butter a 9x5x3-inch (22-24cm) loaf tin. In a bowl sift together flour, cocoa and baking powder and set the mixture aside. Bring about 1 cup (250gr) water to the boil, pull from the heat, add the apricots and soak for 1 minute, time enough for them to soften and plump. Drain and dry the apricots with paper towels; set aside.
Put the sugar and ground almonds in another bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating with an electric whisk on medium speed for 2 minutes after each addition. Increase the speed to high and beat the egg, sugar, almond mixture for 8-10 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the milk, mixing until combined, and then the sifted dry ingredients beating until the batter is homogenous. Working with a large rubber spatula fold in the apricot, the chocolate and the ginger chunks, and then gently fold the melted butter. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a slender knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. If the cake appear to bake too quickly, cover it loosely with kitchen foil for the last 20-30 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool on a rack for 10 minutes before unmoulding it. Cool the cake to room temperature on the rack.

Wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature, the cake will remain moist for at least 5 days.

I cut some 1.5cm thick slices (as Hermè himself says, this isn't a sweet to cut into slivers) with a flower cookie cutter and...
Come on, be patient for a little longer and you will know what this is all about!!!!!
The remaining cake was eaten in no time at all becuase it was FAN-TA-STIC!!!

A soft chocosmile,
Diletta

PS. Diletta beat Pierre, 1-0! Why? Because the picture of this cake in his book shows the apricot and ginger chunks all sunk to the bottom while in my case they are evenly distributed...and I have got a proof:

My secret? I dusted with ground almonds the apricot, ginger and chocolate chunks before adding them to the batter...or maybe I was just lucky!!!