Cake Lady Cakes - Fruit Cake Recipe

I'm bringing fruit cake back into fashion, not that rich dark fruit cake that lives in the pantry fermenting for months but I mean a lovely light coloured fruit cake, full of yummy spicy fruit that's best with a luscious thick layer of butter on top. I had a wedding cake to make for my lovely cousin last week and going against recent trends, they wanted fruit cake in one of the tiers. Now, I don't really need an excuse to make an extra cake, to be honest, but I was recently given a USA Pan cake pan and I've been itching to try it out because apparently, it has a non-stick coating which I'm curious to see working with my cake batter. Also, this cake is one that I can have all to myself because the kids don't like it that much and they're not allowed to waste it by eating it and not loving it! Since I was already making a fruit cake and I have a hankering for a slab with butter on top, I made a bit of extra mix and gave the tin a whirl. It's a lovely heavy tin made from aluminised steel with an internal steel wire rim to give it extra strength and resistance to warping. The base of the tin is fluted to allow better air circulation and a more even bake. Coupled with the silicone non-stick coating, it's meant to release the cake out of the tin with ease. Seems like a really nice and sturdy cake tin that is made to last. I also had a lemon butter cake to make last week so I did a bit extra and tried that out too -you can never have too much cake I say! This is my Aunty Angie's fruit cake recipe and I use it every time. I love it. It's delicious. I've made a few tweaks but it's basically the same as the original. And it's easy as pie. Well, cake actually. First, you need to cook the fruit, with the water, sugar, alcohol, butter, bicarb, zest and spices The bicarb makes it really bubbly but once that subsides you get this sticky, viscous yumminess with all the fruit looking plump and juicy. Then add the flours and eggs and mix. Finally, pour it into your USA Pan and cook! Now, on the packaging, it says to grease and flour the cake tin but I wanted to see how the non-stick surface performed without any help. So I didn't grease or flour or line the tin like the others and I was secretly freaking out about how I was going to get the cake out! But as you can see it came out perfectly! To be fair, it's a stable, firm bottom on this cake so I think the fact that it was fruit cake gave it a head start. When I tried it with the lemon butter cake it left a tiny bit of crust on the bottom of the tin, but I think you'll agree that that's a very good result. This cake would have totally stuck to another aluminium cake tin with no extra grease or flour. Results after making a lemon cake. Despite the caramelisation from baking that would make it stick, it still released from the pan with relative ease and took minimal scrubbing to clean. I will certainly be adding this cake tin to my rotation. It's a fabulous piece of bakeware and gives exactly the results a commercial baker needs! To view the entire USA Pan bakeware range made in the USA, click here

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Fruit cake by Cake Lady Cakes

Ingredients:

• 375ml water
• 220g sugar
• 250g butter
• 750g mixed dried fruit
• 125ml sherry or brandy
• Zest of a lemon and orange
• 1tsp bicarb
• 1tsp mixed spice
• 300g self-raising flour
• 150g plain flour
• 3 eggs

Method: Place water, sugar, butter, fruit, alcohol, zest, bicarb and mixed spice in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and reduce heat to simmer for 5 minutes until the fruit has become plump and soft. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Once cool, preheat oven to 170 degrees and grease and line a 20cm cake tin. Add flours and lightly beaten eggs to your cooked fruit mix and stir to combine. Pour the cake batter into the tin and bake for 1 ½ hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Be sure to eat this cake with butter on it! Enjoy!