Elderflower and Crab apple slow cooker cake.

  Finally the summer seems to have made an appearance. Everyone has stripped off into their summer gear and sunglasses including myself showing off rather more skin than usual! Isn't it funny how sometimes everyone seems to be doing a particular thing? Elderflowers seem to be the thing to make stuff with! Inspired by the frothy cream coloured flowers on my Dad's neighbours tree, I had a quick look round in internet land to see what could be done with them. Jelly, cordial (tried that a couple years ago, not pretty), champagne. BBC Goodfood mentioned sprinkling into cakes-aha!!

    Slow cookers are a bit of an obsession of mine and I use mine more than I use my oven except for cakes. I bake. I bake a LOT! But attempts to make brownies in it a couple weeks ago ended in disaster!!! Burnt chocolate isn't an appetising smell to come home to. Having done a little research (slow cooker saddos on FB) I had sort of formed a plan of action for my next attempt. Inspired by the aforementioned Goodfood comment the chocolate cake idea I briefly flirted with suddenly blossomed (pun intended) into a summery fragrant sponge using elderflowers. I personally am not fond of elderflower. Why make something I know I am not going to like? I try things I like every now and then to see if I might have changed my mind. Usually I prove myself right and still dislike them. But still...
    I also make a lot of jam. Jelly, jam, conserve, marmalade, chutney. If it can go in a jar I give it a go, or make it up as I go along. I have a couple teeny tiny jars of odds and ends to use up with various flavours in them. Usually one is enough to put in a victoria sponge or a couple rounds of toast or something. I have had a small pot of crab apple jelly knocking around on my kitchen worktop for weeks looking for an excuse to be used, so that got added into the equation. So now we have a slow cooker, elderflowers and a small amount of crab apple jelly from last year's production. Add to that the fact I am counting calories and need to cut fat and sugar as much as I can and I have a bit of a challenge on my hands! Using a basic weigh your eggs sponge method and sticking it in my 3.5L cooker for a couple hours and pottering round doing a few other things- quick quilting lesson for a friend, with a couple cups of tea for good measure- and it seems to have done the trick! I have a lovely well risen (and not burnt!) sponge which smells quite like something I might actually like. Leaving it to cool in the crock pot was the hardest part. It has a kind of honeyed, lemony flavour all of its own. I chose not to use any frosting but a drizzle might be a nice addition.

  Elderflower and Crab Apple Slow Cooker Cake.
5 eggs total weight 9.9oz
9.9oz low fat greek style yogurt (easiyo)
9.9oz self raising flour
5oz sugar
1 small pot of crab apple jelly, about 1 tbsp. (something like lemon marmalade could be a good substitute)
1 tsp baking powder
1 head elderflower, remove flowers and discard stalks- shake to dislodge bugs and rinse well.

1. Oil and line a 3.5L slow cooker dish with greaseproof paper. Switch on to high.
    Weigh eggs in shells and use that as your weight for flour and yogurt, and halve for sugar. Add everything        to a large mixing bowl and mix with an electric whisk until all is well combined to a fairly runny batter.
2. Pour batter into the slow cooker and lay a folded teatowel accross the top and place the lid on top: the         teatowel absorbs any steam to stop it dripping into your batter. Leave on high. I left it for an hour then checked every half hour, mine took 2 hours in total to be cooked through. Poke it with a skewer to check there is no uncooked cake mixture in the middle. Switch off and cool in the pot.