A boiled fruit loaf, perfect with tea or to fill up the corners1 after dinner.
Eat the cake, buy the apron!
Ingredients
225 g self-raising flour
175 g soft brown sugar
500 g mixed dried fruit and peel
125 g unsalted buter
225 ml tea (or water)
2 teaspoons mixed spice
½ teaspoon bicarb
2 eggs (beaten)
Method
Line a loaf tin with parchment paper
Melt the butter and the sugar with the tea2 in a large saucepan. Add the dried fruit and peel, then boil gently3 for about ten minutes to let the fruit rehydrate.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Preheat the oven: 140 °C (fan), gas mark 3.
Tip the flour, mixed spice and bicarb into a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and the cooled fruit mixture. Stir well.
Add the eggs and mix in.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for about 50 minutes. It’s done when a skewer comes out clean.
Leave in the tin for ten minutes to cool a bit before turning it out to cool properly on a baking rack.
Serve sliced by itself, spread with butter, or with some strong cheese.
Have it on an apron!
This might be unusual, but you can also have the recipe on a apron, from the Heath Way Prints shop.
I did the design work in Canva. The cartoon of the cake is the photo above rendered by AI. I don’t normally use AI for design work, but this saved some time and it’s my original photo so no copyright issues.
You can also get the recipe on a t-shirt or art prints, if you like! Just click on the buttons to go to the shop.
Nutritional advice
| Serving size: Slice | |
|---|---|
| Servings: 8 | |
| Amount per serving | |
| Calories | 520 |
| % Daily Value* | |
| Total Fat 15.7g | 20% |
| Saturated Fat 8.9g | 44% |
| Cholesterol 127mg | 42% |
| Sodium 223mg | 10% |
| Total Carbohydrate 92.6g | 34% |
| Dietary Fiber 3.1g | 11% |
| Total Sugars 58.5g | |
| Protein 8.1g | |
| Vitamin D 18mcg | 88% |
| Calcium 155mg | 12% |
| Iron 3mg | 17% |
| Potassium 593mg | 13% |
- From The Lord of the Rings after the main feast for Bilbo’s 111st birthday party, guests were “at that delightful stage which they called ‘filling up the corners’. They were sipping their favourite drinks and nibbling at their favourite dainties.” ↩︎
- Choose whatever tea you like. I used PG Tips since that is what we drink. Earl Grey would add its own particular flavour to the cake. If you’re daring, go for something smoky like lapsang souchong or perhaps a green tea for variety. ↩︎
- Hence the description of the recipe as a ‘boiled fruit cake’. You don’t boil the cake. Only an idiot would think that. ↩︎
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