Light Fruit Cake

Fruit Cakes, unlike any other typical cakes, require abit more time, effort and patience. With the careful attention, you can be assured of the special feeling of fulfilment when lifting a freshly baked fruit cake out of the oven. Especially when Christmas is round the corner.

In preparing a fruit cake, make sure you do the extra step of lining the tin in double layers as well as wrapping layers of newspaper around the outside of the tin due to the long cooking time. Lastly sit the tin on layers of newspaper in the oven.

I had a request for a fruit cake from a colleague of mine for her mother as her mother loves fruit cake. I promised her I will do it one day for tasting when I have abit more time and when the baking mood is back. I managed to get it done one day and here's the recipe I wish to share that differs from the one I used to make. However the appearance of my cake differs greatly from the picture in my cook book (Baking: A commonsense Guide). I wish I could reach that standard one day : ( My cake turned out very crumbly.. and broke into pieces once I cut it.

Preparation time: 40 min
Total cooking time: 3 hrs

185g unsalted butter, softened
115g caster sugar
3 eggs
160g sultanas
100g currants
60g chopped glace apricots
45g chopped glace figs
250g chopped glace cherries
80g macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
185g plain flour
60g self raising flour
125ml milk
1tbsp sweet sherry

For all the dried fruits, I simply bought a packet of mixed fruits from the supermarket to ease the hassle of buying individual packs and weighing them all.
That comes to about 605g in total. And as I couldn't find sherry nor rum, I replaced it with orange juice and I also replaced macadamia nuts to walnuts and almonds both chopped.

1. Preheat oven to 160 deg C and grease and line a deep 20cm round or 18cm square cake tin.

2. Cream butter and sugar together until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.

3. Stir in the fruits and nuts.

4. Sift in half the flours and half the milk, stir to combine then continue with the rest of the flour and milk followed by sherry (my juice)

5. Spoon the mixture onto the tin and tap the tin to remove any air bubbles.

6. Wrap the outside of the tin and layer the rack with newspapers. Bake for 1 3/4 hours. Remove from oven and wrap tin in a tea towel until cool. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

(note: top of the tin may need to be covered during baking if it colours too much)

Pls spread the word for the festive season and visit my fellow blogger's blog :)

www.passionbaker.blogspot.com/2010/11/aspiring-bakers-2-christmas-dec-2010.html

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE!