RECIPE: BOILED FRUIT CAKE - AGAIN

Without fail, I make this cake for Christmas and Diwali….in fact, Mr G and I baked these for our wedding too. It’s a fool proof fruit cake and so easy to make . To those of you who haven’t seen the recipe, I’ve put it up again and FYI, you can click HERE to go to the original post. So here’s my BOILED FRUIT CAKE – AGAIN.


PS: I also made this to give as Christmas presents.

Ingredients


375g packet of mixed fruit*
250g butter*
2 cups sugar*
2 cups water*
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
4 cups flour - sieved
4 large eggs – lightly beaten with a fork
2 tbsp 'mixed spice' (don’t use 'all spice') - click on the link for my post on MIXED SPICE

Method

Put all the * ingredients in a large pot and gently bring to a boil. Mix well and turn off the heat.

Add in baking powder and baking soda. Be careful at this stage as the soda has the tendency to rise very quickly. It looks as if a volcano is erupting! That is why you have to place the ingredients in a large pot to compensate for the soda rising.

Leave mixture overnight (on the kitchen bench and covered) to brew.

Next day, heat oven to 180°c (160°c fan forced oven) and line a large square tin with baking paper. Grease the paper lightly with some butter.

Add flour, eggs and mixed spice to the cooked ingredients. You don’t have to use a mixer, just a wooden spoon. Mix thoroughly.


Bake in oven for around 1 hour and 15 mins (you have to start checking the cake at the 1 hour mark). Around the 40 min mark, put a tin foil on top of the cake to prevent the top from burning and to ensure an evenly cooked cake. Serve warm with custard or by itself with a good cup of coffee or tea.

GLOSSARY: MIXED SPICE AND ALLSPICE

Mixed spice, also called pudding spice, is a British blend of sweet spices. This spice mixture can be purchased ready-mixed, but some cooks prefer experimenting and emphasizing different flavours and therefore make their own.

It is used in a variety of cakes and puddings, such as fruit cake, gingerbread and Christmas pudding. Buy or make in small quantities as the mixture loses its full rich flavour if stored for long periods of time. Keep in a cool dark place to prolong its shelf life. Allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger are the usual blend of spices, but some cooks add a few cardamom and coriander seeds.

The term "mixed spice" has been used for this blend of spices in cookbooks going back as far back as 1828. This date could probably be much earlier.

Do not confuse mixed spice with allspice and if a recipe calls for mixed spice, do not substitute with allspice. The flavours are completely different.

Allspice, also called Jamaica pepper, Kurundu, Myrtle pepper, pimento, or newspice, is a spice derived from the dried unripe fruit of the Pimenta dioica , a tree native to the West Indies, southern Mexico and Central America. It is available ground or in seed form, and used in a variety of dishes such as pickles, casseroles, cakes and puddings.


The name "allspice" was coined by the English, who thought it combined the flavour of several aromatic spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Therefore, ground allspice is not, as some people believe, a mixture of spices. Rather, it is the dried fruit of the Pimenta dioica plant. The fruit is picked when it is green and unripe and traditionally dried in the sun. When dry, the fruits are brown and resemble large brown peppercorns. The whole fruits have a longer shelf life than the powdered product and produce a more aromatic product when freshly ground before use.

The leaves of the allspice plant are also used in cooking. For cooking, fresh leaves are used where available. They are similar in texture to bay leaves and are thus infused during cooking and then removed before serving. Unlike bay leaves, they lose much flavour when dried and stored. The leaves and wood are often used for smoking meats where allspice is a local crop. Allspice can also be found in essential oil form.

Allspice is one of the most important ingredients of Caribbean cuisine. It is used in Caribbean jerk seasoning (the wood is used to smoke jerk in Jamaica, although the spice is a good substitute) and in pickling. It is also an ingredient in commercial sausage preparations and curry powders. Allspice is also indispensable in Middle Eastern cuisine but throughout the world, allspice is commonly used in cakes and puddings. Allspice is also a main flavor used in barbecue sauces.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.

- English Proverb

RECIPE: CELEBRATION RASPBERRY BUTTER CAKE

This is one of the cakes I made for Christmas this year. I found this recipe in the Australian December 2008 edition of Better Homes and Garden. What a delightful cake! Another one of those cakes that turn out better after a day’s ‘resting’. So no matter what you do, don’t let temptation get you. Leave the cake to rest, in an airtight container for a day before cutting it. Of course, make sure that the cake is completely cool before you store it, or else it will ‘sweat’. Serve it as is or warm with butter. Would be lovely too, served with some coulis (click to see my recipe on STRAWBERRY COULIS – just change the strawberries to raspberries).


Take note that it is a very ‘heavy’ cake (as it does not have baking powder in it) but it does rise considerably. Make sure you use a 6 to 8 cup capacity tin to bake this cake. A fancy tin would look lovely.

Ingredients

Liberal amounts of melted butter for greasing your tin. No need to flour the tin.
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup of cold water – I used the cold water setting on my tap (Note, we get very cold water in our taps in Canberra, even during summer. No such thing as a cold shower here – you’d freeze to death!)
4 cups plain flour – make sure you tap the cup just once to ‘settle’ the flour and hence to give you the correct amounts. Any more taps and you will have too much flour.
1 tsp cream of tartar
250 g butter – softened (around 20 to 30 sec in the microwave for solid butter – you don’t want it runny, just soft)
1 ½ cups caster sugar (use same principle as the flour – tap once to ‘settle’ the amounts)
4 eggs – bring to room temperature if you have them refrigerated.
300 g frozen raspberries, partially thawed (I brought them out of the freezer when I was ready to start making the cake)
Icing sugar – to dust


Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 6 cup fancy ring cake tin with butter.

Combine the bicarbonate and water in a jug. Set aside. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together in a bowl. Set aside.

Beat sugar and butter in an electric mixer until light and creamy. Note: about 6 mins on setting 5 using a Kenwood mixer. Add in the eggs, one at a time (I gave it 1 minute between each egg I added to the bowl and 2 mins after the last addition).

Remove the bowl from the mixer and using a metal spoon to stir, add in the flour and water mixture. Note: I added half the flour and water, mixed the batter gently (as you would to make muffins) and repeated the process with the second half of the flour and water.

Add in the raspberry, mix well and spoon into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 to 1 ¼ hours or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre. Note: it took exactly 1 hour 15 mins for the cake to cook.

Stand the cake, still in its tin, on a wire rack, for 15 mins before turning out to cool on the rack again. Put cake on a plate and dust with icing sugar (use a small sieve filled with icing sugar and gently cover the cake with it) before serving.