Monday 14th October - Fruit Cake

The house is full of the smell of Farmhouse Fruit Cake, from www.recipesfromacornishkitchen.blogspot.com

I've used soft brown sugar, and added a couple of small apples, peeled and chopped, and a little extra flour because I suspect the apples might make the mixture a bit wetter.
It should be ready in a couple of minutes now. It's a "boiled fruit cake" recipe; I like that kind, because simmering the dried fruit in liquid makes it go all soft and juicy.

This is the Economical Boiled Fruit Recipe that I have often used in the past;

preheat oven to 160C

1/4 pint water
4oz marg (yes! but I ALWAYS use butter now-a-days)
6oz mixed fruit
4oz sugar
8oz SR flour
1 beaten egg

you can tell from the measurements that it's an old recipe - I got it from a magazine back in about 1970something. The recipe as given makes a very plain, but good cake.

Simmer fruit, water, marg(!) and sugar for 15 minutes
Cool to room temperature, and add the flour and the beaten egg
Turn into a greased (and lined) 2lb loaf tin and bake for one and a quarter hours.

Actually I NEVER made it like this. I always used brown sugar, and added a spoonful of mixed spice, for starters. Like the Cornish Kitchen recipe, I would sometimes add different sorts of dried fruit - "luxury dried fruit assortment" which had dried apples, pears and prunes, or "tropical fruit assortment".

But it was a good cake for when we were first married, and living on a very tight budget. Back then, he used to bring home a brown envelope with his pay every Friday - around £30. We used to divvy up the money into different jam-jars for the bills, and I had £10 per week to spend on food for the pair of us...

Aha. That's the buzzer. Let's see what we have got:

I forgot the sprinkle Demerara sugar over it before it went in the oven. Never mind. Looks good to me.