This fruit cake can be made anytime during the year. It is especially useful if you need to bake a cake at the last-minute and have not much time. I baked 2 fruit cakes this Christmas. One was a last-minute cake to give as a gift to my Neighbor and relatives. The other was a traditional brandied Christmas cake.

I put a lot of time and thought into planning my recipe for both the cakes weeks before Christmas. It was worth the effort. Someone asked if the cake was store-bought. I was happy to tell them that it was, in fact, homemade!😇. I feel motivated to post more recipes here when I get good compliments on my recipes. I credit everyone of you for making this happen. Please share your thoughts. Tell me how you spent your Christmas this year. Leave a comment below if you can spare a minute of your time.

Thank you and have a Happy New Year! 😊💫☃

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hr 10 minutes

Need: 20 cm / 8 in round deep cake tin or spring-clip tin greased and lined (or use a ready made cake liner)

Ingredients

Dried Fruits: Raisins – 100 g

Black currents – 20 g

Candied Cherries – 10 pieces, halved

Orange juice – 3/ 4 cup, of 2 large oranges

Unsalted butter, softened – 200 g + extra for greasing

Brown sugar (fine) – 200 g / 1 cup

Plain Flour / Top flour – 225 g

Large whole eggs – 4, at room temperature

Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Ground cinnamon – 1 tsp

Nutmeg – 1 tsp

pinch of salt

Nuts:

Cashew nuts – 70 g, chopped

Almonds, slivered – 20 g

Directions

Place the dried fruits like raisins and currants together with cherries, orange juice into a deep pot. Bring it to a boil on high heat. Turn on the heat and simmer for approximately 15 minutes.

Leave it to cool or if you have time leave it overnight or as long as you can. Coat the nuts in 3 tbsp of all-purpose flour and set it aside.

Preparing the baking tin:

2. In the meantime or on the day of baking, butter a 20 cm round cake tin. Then line both the bottom and the sides with baking paper. Make sure the paper peaks over the top by about 5 cm.

Butter again the base and the sides. Set aside.

Preparing the cake mixture:

3. In a large bowl, combine sugar, butter, flour, eggs, and vanilla. Then add baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt except for dried fruits and nuts.

Start by mixing with a wooden spoon to combine everything gently. If you use a hand mixer too soon, it can cause the flour to scatter. This will create a mess.

Now use the hand mixer and make sure to mix everything really well, around 1.5 – 2 minutes on medium speed. Once its mixed well enough, detach the beaters from the hand mixer and remove any cake batter on it.

4. Add the dried fruit mixture along with its syrup. Mix with the wooden spoon. Then mix in the nuts coated in flour. Give a good mix.

Preheat the oven to 140°C/Gas Mark 1 or for 10 minutes.

5. Spoon the cake mixture into the cake tin. Level the top using a spatula. Bake in the Center of the oven for 70 minutes.

If using a convection oven, place it on the lower rack. Check once after 45 minutes.

It is cooked when a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. I do this without removing the cake tin out of the oven. Do not worry if it has turned light brown on top and needs more time to cook.

If the top turns dark brown in color before it’s cooked, cover it with parchment paper.

Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin. If you wish to decorate the cake you can do so after its completely cooled.