Ghostly California Prune Madeleines

California prunes are the unsung hero of baking, bringing a natural sweetness and soft, rich texture to cakes and bakes. In these ghostly California Prune Madeleines, they add depth of flavour and a lovely moist crumb, making them the perfect base for spooky Halloween treats. The prunes blend effortlessly into the batter, enhancing the warm spices and almond notes. Decorated with a bandage of zesty lemon icing and finished with edible eyes, these little mummies are great fun for kids and ideal for sharing on social media. Alternatively, you could create a scary fruit pie with prune and fruit ‘fake blood’ oozing from creepy cut-outs!

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INGREDIENTS

  •  
  • 150g soft margarine
  • 200g soft brown sugar
  • 100g California prunes
  • 3 free-range eggs
  • 100g self-raising flour
  • 100g ground almonds
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 lemon
  • 150g icing sugar
  • 25g spooky eyes cake decorations

DIRECTIONS

  1. Place the margarine, sugar and California prunes into an electric mixer and blend together until smooth.
  2. Add the eggs and continue to
  3. Scatter in the flour, ground almonds and ginger, then stir together until
  4. Spoon a tablespoon of mixture into each section of a non-stick madeleine
  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 15 minutes or until golden and
  6. Remove and place on a cooling rack. Wipe the tray clean and repeat until all the mixture is used.
  7. Mix the icing sugar with half the lemon juice to form a thick, pipeable icing. Adjust with more juice or sugar as needed.
  8. Pipe bandage-style stripes across the cooled cakes and add two eyes to each to create mummy faces.

AUTHOR

Peter Sidwell

Peter Sidwell

California Prune Board Ambassador Peter Sidwell, is a chef, baker, TV presenter, author, and innovator of all things food related. Peter has been a chef all his working life and over the years has developed a simple, fresh and innovative way of cooking which focuses on the importance of fine ingredients and technical know-how to ensure the best results. Peter has travelled the world cooking, talking and demonstrating his approach and explaining how and why it works so well for all manner of food offerings. Peter works both with chefs, consumers, food producers and retailers to innovate, create process or refine procurement. Working from his new innovation centre in England's beautiful Lake District, Peter and his team create exciting, attractive and mouth-watering new recipes with digital content, showcasing the delicious flavour and versatility of California Prunes.