Fruitcake recipe for 4 - 8 people, takes only 20 mins; recipe has clementine, lemon, orange blossom water, rosewater, clear honey, glace cherry, mixed peel, dried apricot, sultana, cranberry, mango, butter, golden caster sugar, light muscovado sugar, egg, plain flour, ground almond, ground cinnamon, orange blossom water and orange juice.
Suits-all Christmas cake
Course: Fruitcake
Servings
4 - 8
servings
Prep time
30 mins
Ingredients
- Egg: 4 large eggs, beaten
- Lemon: zest 2 lemons, plus 100ml juice
- Butter: 280g butter at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
- Plain Flour: 250g plain flour
- Ground Cinnamon: 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- Ground Almond: 100g ground almonds
- Sultana: 175g golden sultanas
- Golden Caster Sugar: 140g golden caster sugar
- Mango: 100g dried mango, diced
- Dried Apricot: 200g dried apricots, diced
- Clear Honey: 3 tbsp clear honey
- Cranberry: 140g dried cranberries or sour cherries, or a mix
- Glace Cherry: 200g glace cherries
- Orange Juice: 50ml orange juice
- Light Muscovado Sugar: 140g light muscovado sugar
- Mixed Peel: 200g mixed peel
- Clementine: zest 1 orange or 2 clementines, plus 100m juice
- Rosewater: 1 tsp rosewater
- Orange Blossom Water: 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Directions
- Mix together the orange and lemon zests and juice, the orange blossom water, rosewater and honey in a large bowl. Stir in all of the dried fruit, cover and leave overnight to soak.
- The next day, heat oven to 160C/140C fan/ gas 3. Grease and double-line a 22cm round or square cake tin (for a flatter cake) or a 20cm round or square tin (for a deeper cake) with baking parchment. In another big bowl, beat the butter and sugars together with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one by one, then fold in the flour, almonds and cinnamon.
- Tip in the soaked fruits and any juices left in the bowl, and stir in. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin and level the top. If you want your cake flat rather than slightly rounded, make a gradual dip in the centre of the mix with the back of a wooden spoon. Bake for 1 hr 30 mins, then turn the oven down to 140C/120C fan/gas 1 and bake for another 1 hr 30 mins for 22cm cakes, or 1 hr 50 mins for 20cm cakes, until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin, sitting on a wire rack.
- While the cake is still warm, mix together the feeding ingredients, pepper the cake with holes using a thin skewer and spoon over the liquid. If you're making the cake ahead of time, feed once a week for up to 4 weeks. Keep well wrapped in parchment, inside an airtight container, for up to 1 month. If you're not getting ahead, this cake tastes just as delicious a day or two after baking.
