This traditional family fruit cake is easy to make

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 13

This traditional family fruit cake is easy to make

Alison Holst’s

rood Facts 4..

This fruit cake is a favourite of mine. It is a recipe given to me by my mother, and to her by one of her friends who has made it regularly for years. The cake is particularly easy to mix, and has no complicated ingredients. My slightly altered, simplified version calls for no sifting. The cake is mixed in the saucepan, in which the fruit is boiled and the butter melted. I think it is worth taking the couple of minutes needed to beat the eggs thoroughly with some of the sugar. If you don’t want to do this in a bowl with a rotary beater, you can do it in a food processor. It’s really six of one and half a dozen of the other! 400 to 500 g sultanas water to cover 200 g butter % tsp vanilla % tsp almond essence IVz cups sugar 3 eggs 1 cup self raising flour IVz cups flour Wash fruit in a sieve if necesMry, then tip into a fairlys«rge saucepan. Cover with water and bring to the

boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Drain fruit thoroughly (through the sieve) and return them to the saucepan. Add the butter, cut into 18 to 24 small cubes, the essences and one cup of the sugar. Stir until the butter has melted, then stand and saucepan in cold water and stir occasionally until cooled to room temperature. While the mixture cools, beat the eggs with the remaining Vz cup of sugar until thick and fluffy. Tip the beaten egg mixture on top of the fruit mixture, then add the two flours. Mix everything together using a rubber scraper or spatula. Stir until well mixed out do not over-mix. Turn into a round or square 23cm (9 inch) cake tin with the bottom (and sides if you like) lined with baking paper or waxed paper. Bake at 150 C for 1% hours, or until a skewer comes out clean. Variations: Replace sugar with brown sugar, add one teaspooVcinnamon and one mixed spice.