[Sca-cooks] Fruit cake recipe

[Louise Smithson]

Happy to provide it, and mum was pleased when she found out where her recipe was going.
Helewyse de Birkestad
March of the Marshes
Middle kingdom

English Fruitcake recipe.

My mother has been cooking this fruitcake since around 1967, it was her own wedding cake in 1968 and most of the rest of the family's wedding/christening/Xmas/Easter cakes ever since.  She sent me the recipe about two years ago, but it was almost medieval in its brevity.  So I called her up this afternoon to get specific details from her, rather than a list of ingredients.  Sorry if this is rather long I am trying to condense thirty years experience in a single recipe.

The following recipe is for an 8" round cake, for a 6" round use ¾ of the recipe for a 10" round use 1½.
All measurements are in ounce weight unless otherwise indicated

Ingredients
Currants (zante)		10 oz
Sultanas (golden raisins)	10 oz
Raisins			7 oz
Glace cherries		5 oz
Slivered almonds		4 oz
Citrus peel *1		4 oz
Butter or margarine *2	10 oz
Soft brown sugar *3		10 oz
Large eggs		6
Almond essence		1 tsp
Plain flour *4		9 oz
Ground nutmeg		½ teaspoon (abbreviated tsp)
Ground cinnamon		1 tsp
Ground ginger		½ tsp
Mixed spice *5		1 tsp
Brandy 			about a cup
Apricot jam
Almond paste/marzipan
Fondant icing (the rollable stuff)

Method

1) Up to two days before.  Wash the dried fruit (sultanas, currants, raisins) and allow to drain.  When dry put it in a bowl and add about ¼ to ½ cup brandy (you decide, she doesn't measure).  And leave to soak.
2) Preheat oven to 150 °C, 300°F or 130°C if you have a convection oven.
3) Add cherries, citrus peel and almonds to the dried fruit mix (mum said she sometimes includes chopped dried apricots, your choice)
4) Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
5) Add the eggs and beat to incorporate, they will separate but "don't worry about it", add the almond essence.
6) Sift the flour and spices together and fold into the batter
7) Fold in the fruit mixture
8) Pour into a greased and lined cake tin (parchment or greaseproof paper) *6
9) Bake in the center of the oven for about 3 hours, or until a skewer pushed into the center of the cake comes out clean *7.
10) Allow to cool in the tin overnight.
11) Leave the parchement paper on the cake.  Prick the cake all over with a skewer and sprinkle over about two or three tablespoons of brandy.  Wrap in tinfoil, put in an airtight tin and let it sit in a cool, dark place for a month or more *8.

To ice and decorate
1) In a pan bring just to a boil, 2 to 4 tablespoons of apricot jam and a tablespoon of water.  Strain it through a sieve to get rid of lumps.
2) Brush the cake all over with the apricot jam, this serves to seal the cake and allow the almond paste to stick.
3) Cover the cake with almond paste/marzipan.  Leave uncovered for three days.  This allows the marzipan to dry out so that the almond oils don't soak through the icing.
4) Brush the marzipan with boiled water to allow the sugar paste to stick.
5) Have fun coloring in sugar paste and cutting out santas, xmas trees, whatever your fervent imagination wishes and decorate the cake.  Enjoy.

Notes
*1	In the UK and Canada this is sold as cut mixed peel.  It is a mixture of candied orange, lemon and citron peel.  Do not substitute "English mix" candied fruits, it is not the same.
*2	In most of my mothers recipes when she says butter she uses margarine.  The cake is so strongly flavored that the flavor of the butter does not come through and margarine is cheaper.
*3	US equivalent would be light brown sugar.
*4	UK plain flour is lower in gluten than US all-purpose flour.  Cake flour may be a more appropriate substitute.
*5	Mixed spice is a ground mixture of cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg and ginger.  It is similar but not identical to pumpkin pie spice.  Add a pinch each of ground cloves and allspice.  My mother did not have accurate measurements for the spices her words were "More cinnamon and mixed spice than ginger and nutmeg, probably around a tsp of cinnamon".  So feel free to alter the amounts/proportions of spice to suit your taste.
*6	Because of the slow baking it is necessary to insulate the side of the pan to prevent scorching.  To do this a double layer of newspaper is tied around the pan with string, it should top the edge of the pan by at least 2 inches.  The cake tin is then placed on a tray on top of another two sheets of newspaper.
*7	Fruit cakes can bake for variable times before they are ready, even with the same oven and cook.  Mum said some of hers bake for nearly four hours, others for three.  It probably depends on how moist the fruit was, humidity, oven, how generous you were with the brandy.  So don't worry if it has been in the oven for over 3½ hours and it isn't done yet.
*8	It matures as it sits, my mother said not to add brandy more than this once because it has a tendency to make the cake soggy so that it collapses when you try to cut it.  She is going to start her Xmas cakes next week so they will be two months old when we cut into them.