PAW's Recipe of the Month January 2016 - Boiled Fruit Cake

So I hope you survived? It is all over for another year and I am certainly hoping that 2016 will not pass at such a pace as did 2015.

I sometimes wonder if my thoughts and conviction to food is replicated in other people. Surely you must crave for something sometimes whether it is chocolate or a particular dish that has either been invoked by an incident or even a childhood memory. So it must be - there I was thinking about Christmas and I hadn’t made the customary cake. Well it always lingers on and on and in the end you can’t even give it away. Yes I know you can store it commit it to the freezer but in the end there it is. A bought one is never the same and really doesn’t have that lovely Christmas smell that wafts through the house.

Pondering and wanting to make a cake I dug out my trusted cookery recipe book that I have had for more than 50 years and there was a gem i hadn’t made for almost as long I am sure. Would it work and what would it be like – only one way to fine out and so I did.

A joy, a moist scrummy unfussy fruit cake not quite as rich as a classic Christmas cake but if I had plugged it with alcohol I am sure it would have come up to the mark. This recipe employs what is known in cooking terms the boiling method – do try it i am sure you will not be disappointed.

Boiled Fruit Cake

2ozs chopped Glace Cherries

½ pt Water

10ozs Margarine

8ozs Currants

8ozs Sultanas

4ozs chopped Peel

1 lge can Condensed Milk

10oz Plain Flour

¾ level tsp Bicarb

Pinch of Salt

1. Place Cherries, Water, Margarine, Fruit, Milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil
2. Simmer gently fro 3 mins then leave to cool
3. Add Flour, Bicarb, Salt and beat well
4. Pour into a lines greased 8” tin
5. Bake in oven 160C for about 3 hours – check with skewer after 2 ½ hours. Cool for at least 5 minutes before turning out.

N.B. You can put Almonds on the top before baking if you like.