Fruit Cake (Made with Tea)

It’s officially Bakemas 2019! 🎉 

If it’s your first bakemas here, welcome. It is my annual mini-series in which I show you how to make a various Christmas themed baked goods – perfect if you want to impress your family and friends or if you’re hosting a Christmas party!

Is it even Christmas without having a fruit cake? 

I know that a fruit cake is more traditional and not is overlooked because people don’t like them that much. This is a different take on the cake, it’s not such a traditional recipe but a very welcome addition if you need a quick fruit cake this holiday season.

This isn’t your conventional type fruit cake, as you will use the hob and different ingredients. It’s slightly lighter than a traditional variety but equally as tasty.

I’ve made a traditional fruit cake and have a blog post showing you how to make fruit cake 2 ways – don’t forget to check them out if you’re interested. If you know someone who likes fruit cake, it would make the perfect gift. Simply make the cake (decorate if you’d like) and place into a festive themed box or tin.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

175g Butter.

450g Dried fruit.

175g Light brown sugar.

200ml Strong tea, cold.

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda.

3 Eggs.

300g Plain flour.

2 tsp Ground mixed spice.

20-30g light brown sugar.

Methods:

Before you get into making the cake, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all of your ingredients, prepare your 8” cake tin (if its needed), preheat your oven to 150˚c/300˚f and get any equipment you intend on using ready.

*I recommend making the tea a day in advance, giving it time to cool fully. Simply make 200ml strong tea.

To start on the cake, take a large saucepan and into it place the butter, light brown sugar, mixed dried fruit and tea. Place that on the hob over a medium-high heat, bringing to a boil, then allowing it to simmer for around 10-15 minutes. Doing this allows the fruit become more plump and the mixture to be thicker and richer.

Once it’s achieved the nice and thick consistency, take off the heat and allow to cool down for 10 minutes. 

After the 10 minute period, add in the bicarbonate of soda and give it all a good mix, you’ll notice a change in the mixture and this is what you want. It shows that it’s all working properly.

Add in the eggs, all at one go and give it all a good mix until the eggs are fully incorporated. You’ll notice a change in consistency but this is normal.

Now you can add the plain flour and ground mixed spice, stirring until they are fully incorporated, like with any cake try not to over-mix the mixture. Once there’s no trace of a single ingredient, stop mixing.

Take the cake batter and transfer into your cake tin and spread/level it out using the silicon spatula or offset spatula. 

Sprinkle over the light brown sugar, this is just to add a crunchy texture on-top but feel free to leave this out if you don’t want a crunchy top.

Bake in the oven for around 60-75 minutes in your preheated oven, a tester when inserted should come out clean. If it doesn’t, place back in oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool down fully in the cake tin, then remove from the tin and slice it up or wrap it up on clingfilm and consume within 3-5 days.

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below.