Fruit & Nut Cake (no Flour)
Preheat oven to170°C
75g Ready soaked dried Apricots
75g Raisins
100g Glace Cherries chopped
175g Ground Almonds
3 tablespoons Ruby Port or Sherry
3 Eggs separated
75g Butter
75g Caster Sugar
½ teaspoon Almond Essence
75g toasted chopped Nuts (almonds, walnuts & Brazil nuts)
Line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment. Put raisins and apricots in a little saucepan with port or sherry. Heat gently, to allow the fruit to soak up the alcohol. Transfer into a bowl to cool. Then add the cherries and nuts to the cooled fruit. Also mix 2 tablespoons of the weighed ground almonds and toss these together. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry. In another mixing bowl beat together the butter and sugar until soft & fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks & almond essence. Stir in the remaining ground almonds into the cake mixture. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold ½ into the egg, fat and sugar mixture. Then add the fruit and nut mixture and mix. Finally, stir in the remaining egg whites until well mixed. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Level off the surface – no well and bake in a pre-heated oven for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin. When cool, dust with icing sugar.
Slice thickly with a sharp knife.
I’d love a slice now, Grannymar…
Am I the only fruit and nut case around here today?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L8H4IC9ttIU
No, Steph, I’m here too ,but I’m having a terrible time getting all these damned mobile phones to ring at once and bake this thing…..
I wanted it ready for Christmas but I guess I’ll have to wait and serve it at Easter..That is if I ever figure out what caster sugar is..Also, I must confess that I drank the 3 tablespoons + a pint of port trying to get this stupid mobile to heat up…
@Steph – Are you admitting to being a fruit and nut case? 🙄
@Nancy I think you might have to lite the gas…. but don’t breathe out while you do it! 🙄
Sorry girls, not for me. I like my fruit juicy not dried. Or crushed into a vat and fermented of course!
Can you be generous with the port…say 30 tablespoons
Evening GM
@Baino – I will join you in a glass of the fermented fruit! 😉
@Mike – 30 tablespoons of Port might make the cake tipsy!
A tipsy cake sounds lovely..but fermented fruit sounds even nicer
This is handy.
A present for those friends of mine who can’t take wheat. (I’ll be making it for a few friends, but making them very separately from other things)
However, can you suggest modifications for those who can’t take nuts?
Will,
I would not like to modify this recipe since the nuts (ground almonds) are what holds the mixture together.
I have a very rich fruit cake (wedding cake) recipe that I have used as a Christmas cake and also as wedding cakes since 1960! Now that could be made without nuts.
Wedding cake?
Is there a Mr and Mrs Claus figure set available to go on top?
(not as silly an idea as you might think, there are a lot of December brides)
Will
I am sure you can purchase the Mr and Mrs Claus figures. My very first Christmas cake (1960) was made in a roasting tin to provide a rectangular cake. I iced it as a snowy scene complete with lake (a mirror set in the icing), trees, reindeer and a sleigh.
My Decoration plans are much simpler.
Bake. Turn over (flat sides are easier)
Put layer of “white” marzipan (I’m sure that classic of apricot jam comes in here somewhere, but nomnomnom effects may occur)
Roll out white icing, take cookie cutter of stars, cover the “off-white” background with overlapping stars.
of course I need to bake (and not eat) the cake first.
I was searching for fruit and nut cake from 2 days. I have found one recipe from you tube, but it doesn’t look good. His cooking method is little different from this. Do you have a picture of this cake? I want to give a try.