Boiled fruit cake

Trying out a recipe from the Beeb, for boiled fruit cake. The first childminder that looked after Beatrice was not a very talkative woman. Her place was worryingly clean and I ended up finding someone else, she wasn't very cosy. She had an air freshener stuck onto a framed picture of a forest scene. However, on the plus side, she made a fantastic boiled fruit loaf. When I asked her how she made it, she looked at me like I was a nutter. It was not a relationship with mutual understanding. I got on very well with the cake though. This experiment is in tribute to the first mouthful of that cake.

I am using up dried fruit from the cupboard. Currants, a less favoured dried fruit, named after Corinth, as in Raisins de Corinthe, glace cherries, candied peel, sultanas as well as prunes and unsulphured apricots. I was hoping to find some dates at the back of the cupboard, but no.

Here is my edited version of the recipe

round and flat version

Ingredients

BOILED FRUIT MIXTURE

70g/4 oz Brown Sugar

125g/8 oz margarine or butter

500g/1lb mixed fruit

2 tsp mixed spice

½ pint (a mugful) Milk

FOR THE CAKE MIXTURE

70g/4 oz Glace Cherries, cut in half

2 eggs, beaten

50g/2 oz chopped walnuts

375g/12 oz Self Raising Flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 160C / Gas 3

Grease two loaf tins, and line the base

1.    Put all the ingredients in the boiled fruit list into a large saucepan, bring to the boil on a low heat, then allow the mixture to cool for about 30 minutes

2.    Add the cherries and nuts stir through

3.    Add the beaten eggs, and mix well

4.    Stir the cinnamon and bicarb into the flour, and fold the flour mixture in thoroughly

5.    Place the mixture in a greased and lined loaf tins and bake for around an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean

6.      Allow to cool and leave plain, or glaze with melted apricot jam

This cake tastes better if you leave it for a couple of days, before eating it.