Butter Fruit Cake
August 29, 2013Celebrated my dad's birthday with a home-made fruit cake. Like my mum, my dad doesn't fancy those sinful and creamy layered cakes...
August 29, 2013
Celebrated my dad's birthday with a home-made fruit cake. Like my mum, my dad doesn't fancy those sinful and creamy layered cakes. He prefers those cakes which more traditional and old school. He is a great fan of raisins. He walks to me whenever i am baking and asks me "Why don't you add some raisin?" Since he likes raisins and dried fruits so much, I decided to bake fruit cake on his birthday! I used my Apricot Pistachio Lemon Cake as the base recipe. It tastes pretty good. Well if i were to bake again, i will probably double the amount of lemon zest because the rum masked away the original lemon flavor. Alternatively, if you do not have rum, you can simply boil the dried fruits in hot water. Let it soak for about 15 mins and drain it afterwards. The purpose is to soften the dried fruits.
Recipe: ( Makes 1 large 8X5 inch loaf tin or a low 8X8 inch low square cake)
115g unsalted butter at room temperature150g sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
100g cup plain yogurt
180g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt (omitted since I used salted pistachios and salted butter)
90g chopped dried apricots
40g unsalted pistachios (roughly chopped)
1. Boil then simmer the dried fruits in rum until the dried fruits have almost fully absorbed the rum.
2. Sieve the flour.
3.Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius
4. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well. Mix in the lemon zest, lemon juice and yoghurt.
5. In a medium bowl, combine the sieved flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir to blend. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing just until blended. Stir in the apricots and nuts. Spread evenly in the prepared pan.
4. Bake for 50-50 mins or until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Let the cake cool in the pan 15 minutes, then unmold right side up on a wire rack and let cool completely. Cut into slices to serve.
