Recipe: Giggle Cake

So that you can recreate the taste of that lovely fruit cake I made all those years ago for the Llangollen garden show, I have written up the recipe below. For a list of ingredients search in the Shopping list tab above.

1) Grease with butter and line a 7" round cake tin and set your oven to 180*c.

2) First I put 350g of Mixed dried fruit in a bowl and covered it with boiling water. I left these to soak for a good half an hour before using them in the recipe later on. This allowed the fruit to soak up the water and become very moist and plump in the cake once cooked.

3) Put 125g of unsalted butter and 175g of soft brown sugar in a large pan and gently heat through until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Drain the mixed fruit using a sieve and then place the fruit on a few pieces of kitchen roll to dry off any residual water. Add the fruit to the sugar mixture and cook on a low heat making sure you stir the mixture well. After 5 minutes transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and set it aside to cool for 10 minutes. 

4) Measure out 225g of Self raising flour and 1 teaspoon of ground mixed spice. After the mixture has cooled, sift in the flour and mixed spice, add a pinch of salt, and mix it in well. Beat two eggs and add them a little at a time to the cake mixture until it is all nicely incorporated. 

5) Measure 225g of drained tinned pineapple and chop it up into pieces of about 2cm on the outer edge of the ring. Also measure out 125g of glacé cherries and cut them all in half. Add the pineapples and cherries to the cake mixture and stir it in until it is combined.Transfer the mixture to the cake tin before levelling the surface. 

6) Bake the cake in the oven for about an hour. Test the cake with a cake tester or a fine metal skewer to make sure it is done; it should come out clean if it is. Transfer your cake to wire rack to cool. 

The pineapple and soaked fruit in this cake give it a wonderfully moist consistency and the pineapple is really a lovely and different flavour for a fruit cake. Let me know how it goes if you try it in the comment boxes below!