Less can be more. That’s my lesson after a recent baking experiment. I was poking through my cabinets to find inspiration when I came across a bag of dark dried fruit. I couldn’t figure out what they were. Not dates. Not prunes. Not figs. I then realized they were organic dried apricots. Without preservatives they turn brown after picking but they still taste the same.I shuffled through my recipe collection and found one for apricot and cherry cake. However, it seemed a bit rich – lots of butter and eggs. To make it lighter, I reduced the butter and egg yolks and added yogurt. As I was beating the batter I noticed how fluffy it was – because of the egg whites.The batter nearly filled the loaf pan. I thought about removing some of it, but figured it was unlikely to overflow.Wrong. Halfway through baking, a burning smell reached the bedroom. Rushing to open the door, I saw that some batter had overflowed onto the bottom of the oven. It was blackening and starting to produce smoke. I’m sad to say this isn’t my first such experience so I knew what to do – I removed the cake, scraped the fallen batter, and placed the cake on top of a foil-covered baking sheet before sliding it back into the oven. In the end, it took much longer to bake and didn’t rise very much. However, it was delicious and reasonably light.The lesson here is that by reducing the egg yolks and butter, I had created a fluffier cake which required a larger pan. Baking is a science so it’s important to understand the chemistry involved when experimenting. The other lesson is to trust your gut. When I saw how much batter there was I should have divided it into two pans.The recipe below has been adjusted to produce just enough batter for a single loaf pan.Please note I’ve created a new tag – Freezes Well – on the suggestion of one of my readers. I hope to add this tag retroactively.