A White Fruit Cake full of glace pineapple, cherries, lemon and orange rind, raisins, almonds, egg whites
This is an excellent fruit cake any celebration, if you don’t like Dark or Light Fruit Cakes, this White Fruit Cake this will probably change your mind. It is a great recipe for launching a kitchen! I have made it for weddings, engagements, Christmases, parties, business launches, and it’s good to eat when you just need a lift too. If you can’t cook find someone who will make if for you!
The cake is better for making it ahead of time and leaving it for at least three days and I am told preferably a couple of weeks before eating it (a cake has never lasted out of the freezer for more than three days in our house!) It freezes well if you need to make it ahead of time or can be left in an air tight tin for some time (but I do find that it gets sticky fingers attacking it, if left unguarded!)
Makes: 2.5kg (5½ lb) cake
Equipment:
Cake tin: spring form tin with a tube centre or a 25cm (10 inch) angel food cake tin
Greaseproof paper
Kitchen Scales
Teaspoon Measure
Sharp Knife (Use under supervision)
Cutting Board
Mixing Bowl
Blender (Use under supervision)
Wooden Spoon
Oven (Use under supervision)
Ingredients:
Crystallised Pineapple (6 Slices)
Candied Citron (170g/6oz)
Candied Lemon & Orange Rind (225g/8oz)
Glacé Cherries (halved) (112g/4oz)
Seedless Raisins (170g/6oz)
Slivered Blanched Almonds (170g/6oz)
Plain Flour (455g/1lb)
Baking Powder (2 teaspoons)
Salt (2 teaspoons)
Fat (Lard or Vegetable Fat) (170g/6oz)
Butter or Margarine (66g/2oz)
White Sugar (455g/1lb)
Milk (112ml/4fl. oz)
Egg Whites (8)
Method:
- Prepare baking tin by lining it with two layers of greaseproof paper.
- Cut the candied fruit into large uniform slices so that the cut slices show beautiful colours.
- Combine fruit and almonds with sifted dry ingredients.
- Cream together fat, butter or margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Stir in combined fruits, nuts and sifted dry ingredients alternatively with milk to make a stiff batter.
- In a separate oil free bowl beat egg whites until stiff then gently fold into cake batter.
- Spoon mixture into prepared tin.
- Bake in a slow oven (300°F, Mark 2, 150°C) about 2½ hours or until firm to touch and skewer comes out of cake clean.
- If top seems to be browning too fast, cover it with heavy greaseproof paper during last 45 minutes of baking. Do same with bottom of cake if you have floor gas or electric heated ovens.
Enjoy!
Sue
1 response so far ↓
1 Steve // Feb 3, 2008 at 2:18 am
Chef’s been teaching me how to cook and with his advice I was able to make a variety of this cake at home.
Not being in the Kitchen I was limited by the ingredients I had available to me.
First off, according to Chef, most of the ingredients aren’t set in stone.
I didn’t have any Crystalised Pineapple or Raisins, and I didn’t have enough Slivered Almonds.
Chef said ‘the raisins are used being the largest of the dired grapes, while the cherries are cut in half to match the size of the Raisins likewise the Pineapple is cut up.
‘Smaller dried grapes can be used in place of the Raisins, it’ll taste the same but won’t be as decorative when cut up.’ So I used a bag of Pre-Mixed Fruit instead.
The Crystalised Pineapple was a bit trickier, Chef told me that it was used because it was a light colour and wouldn’t darken the fruit cake when cooked, he suggested 250grams of apricots or crystalised ginger. I had a 100g packet of Glace Pineapple and one and a half packets of Glace Ginger - Chef said these would change the flavor of the cake somewhat, but not disaterously so - it wasn’t as though I’d mixed up the measures for salt and sugar again…
The Fat I used was a type of vegetable fat, I asked Chef why not just use butter? Well it seems that the solids in butter burn at a lower temperature than fat, again making the cake darker than it should be.
I also didn’t understand about the salt, why put salt into a sweet dish - it appears that salt is both a flavor enhancer and a natural preservative. It will make the cake taste nicer and last longer whether it’s frozen (by preventing the cake from freezing totally, like salt on an icy sidewalk) or stored in a cake tin - who knew.
A final note, after running around the kitchen all day, I was exhausted upon completion of this dish and didn’t wash up straight away. This is not adviseable, it took me half an hour to clean the pots in the morning, a job that would’ve taken only a few minutes the night before. Even if you are tired, don’t leave the job until later, it’ll just become a bigger job if you do.
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