Hubby bakes by proxy: Part 2 — the ultimate fruit cake!

Round 2! Ding ding ding!

I was getting tired of baking the same old raisin lemon cake with raisins (soaked in rum). So it’s nice that he wants to experiment.

I’m using the same lemon cake recipe, but because of all the dried fruit I’ll be adding, I made a couple of adjustments to the measurements and added some vanilla essence to bring it all together

fruity goodness!

So, the usual ingredients with minor edits (in italics):

2½ cups flour
1 and a third cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup butter
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon rind (grate the skin)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

I pre-soaked 1 cup of raisins in rum.   

start with the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, lemon grates, and butter
mix with a fork until it’s even and grainy
like this
mix the eggs, milk and vanilla in another bowl, beat smooth, add to the dry mix and combine to a smooth batter
then add the dried fruit. One of the packs he got had huge ones! Plums, apples, apricots and pears. I cut them up into small pieces, about the same size as the raisins. I didn’t use the pears though

Here are the quantities I used:

1 third cup pineapples
1 third cup sultanas
¼ cup apples
¼ cup plums
¼ cup apricots

 

all cut up, from the left, going clockwise: apricots, plums, apples, then from two other packets sultanas and dried pineapple pieces
add to the batter and fold in
chunky with fruit
And yes, after all that there was still a cup of raisins to be added. These raisins had been soaking in rum for about a week. He usually wants them flambéed, helps to get rid of the sharpness/bitterness of the rum. I just zapped them in the microwave for a minute instead (^_^), then let them cool (do this before you start making the batter so they can have time to cool), poured them into the batter with the rum they’d been soaking in
man that’s a lot of fruit! Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Butter a baking pan and dust it with flour, put the batter in. Bake for 35 min at that temperature, then lower to 160°C for another 30 min
Borrowed a larger spring form pan from my mother. I may have not put it together properly, 15 min in and it started leaking. Too late to put the batter somewhere else so I let it sit, to see what would happen
and it turned out great! (^_^) The batter didn’t sip out much more, it was already hardening
make the lemon glaze as it cools

Lemon glaze
Heat up 4½ teaspoons of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a small pot. Let it boil for 2 min.

glaze on
tasting time

 

Husband Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★
Babe! Umetoboa! You are doing really well with this baking thing!
Why do the raisins always sink to the bottom?

They’re heavy

Or the batter is too light?!

Ohh! Hadn’t thought of that,…

I noticed the rum-raisin cakes always taste better towards the end, the last slices are better. They age nicely because of the rum. Next time, split the batter into two. We’ll keep one nice and sealed for a week or two so it can age nicely before I start eating it

Or we could cut this cake in half and leave one half to age

No babe! I don’t want it cut, I want a full crust. Or just bake one soon so it will have already aged for a while by the time I finish this one. And put more raisins, it needs to be packed, you know?! 

hmmmm! At least he thinks so!

Yeah, still not getting the raisin portion high enough! I should just use a whole pack! Don’t know why I still bother to measure. But this time I figured with all the other dried fruit he really wouldn’t need too many raisins.

This is turning into a relentless chase for the cake filled raisin! (^_^)

What tasty treat have you been chasing lately?

 

About aika

Making, eating and sharing good food are a splendid way to start, brake and end a day! I post good eats on www.pendolamama.co.ke. Life is a feast, eat up!

7 thoughts on “Hubby bakes by proxy: Part 2 — the ultimate fruit cake!”

  1. To help the raisins not to sink to the bottom, mix them with some little flour before adding to the batter. You can even do that for the other dry fruits.
    At the moment hubby and I are into banana chocolate muffins. I bake them almost weekly 🙂

    Reply

    1. Thanks for the tip! I’ll try mixing them in flour next time.
      Been thinking about doing muffins too,… need a baking pan first
      Might try your recipe first when I’m ready (^_^)

      Reply

  2. Definitely trying out this recipe this weekend. Need a round baking tin though, only have the bread one.

    FYI I love your blog 🙂

    Reply

    1. Thanks Jerono! (^_^)

      BTW, if you don’t mind the cake being shaped like a loaf of bread you can use the bread tins if you have two. Split the batter between them.

      Reply

  4. I tried tossing the raisins in flour before mixing them but they still dropped to the bottom. Wonder why?

    Reply

    1. Hey Jerono! I did one this weekend and my raisins sank too, even with the tossing. I have a couple of theories I’m testing out.

      1. The batter is too light, might have to reduce some of the liquid ingredients

      2. The cake is taking too long to set. Probably because it’s either sitting around waiting for the oven to warm up or sometimes I turn on the oven and put in the cake pan right away before the oven warms up so there’s still a bit of a wait.

      So I think on the next one I’ll wait till the oven is at 180C, then fold in the raisins, pour the batter into the pan and place in the oven straight away. Hopefully it will start setting before there’s much sinking

      How was the cake though, did it taste OK despite the raisins sinking?

      Reply

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