GRANDMA MABEL’S “SIMPLE” FRUIT CAKE

Being of that festive time of year I thought I would share my Grandma’s “quick” fruit cake. By quick, I mean not one of those Christmas style fruit cakes that you have to feed religiously for 4 weeks to ensure it is moist and lovely and tasty.

Don’t get me wrong, they are a labour of love and have a time and a place and normally do taste fantastic…. However sometimes you want,… or need… a fruit cake that is simple and quick in comparison to make but full of flavour – well here it is. I swear by this cake and make several times a year and tastes great on it’s own or as I prefer being of Northern descent a nice thick slice of Lancashire cheese on a thickly buttered slice of the cake 😊

In her normal style, my Grandma just says “fruit” on the recipe… I normally use 2/3^rd mixed peel, with rest made up of sultanas and halved glace cherries… but that’s what I like. I have made with currants and raisins alone before now and still great!

I have translated the imperial to metric for the units, and whilst the bicarb and mix of flours seemed a strange one to me at first I have always done it this way

Feel free to decorative with marzipan and icing as you see fit…. personally I prefer the simple plain fruit cake

This really is a delightfully simple but great recipe – give it a go !

 Ingredients

·         4oz (12og) Butter or Margarine

·         6oz (170g) Brown Sugar – I normally use a dark brown soft sugar, but light is fine too

·         14oz (340g) fruit – see above re what fruit

·         225ml Water

·         1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

·         ¾ tsp mixed spice – more or less to your taste really

·         4oz (120g) plain flour

·         4oz (120g) self raising flour

·         Pinch of salt

·         2 x eggs – beaten

Method

This really is a simple cake to make..

Preheat your oven to 180°C and double line a cake tin with greaseproof paper and grease a little. I still find a little Grease” helps here. As for the tin I find a deeper 8” (200mm) by 3” (75mm) loose bottomed tin works perfectly for this.

Start by putting the butter, sugar, fruit, water, spice and bicarb in a saucepan. Heat on a moderate heat until butter in melted, then boil for a minute. Take of the heat and allow to cool ideally in a bowl but I often leave in the pan.

Once cooled add the eggs, flour and salt to the wet ingredients and mix well to form a batter.

Pour this mix into the prepared tin and place in the oven to bake. Check the cake after about one hour, more to ensure the top is not burning dependent on your oven, but normally will take approx. 1 ¼  to 1 ½ hours to fully bake. I use a metal skewer to test that it is fully cooked through.

Take out of the tin and cool on a wore track… as simple as that

If never tried with butter and nice crumbly Lancashire cheese… do it !!