How to make a boiled fruit cake, it's easy and really tastes good
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 This is how we make an easy boiled fruit cake.
00:04 [Music]
00:19 You'll need 350 grams of mixed dried fruit,
00:24 110 grams of butter, 110 grams of soft brown sugar,
00:32 120 mils of milk, 1 level teaspoon of mixed spice,
00:38 1 egg, just lightly beaten, and 220 grams of self-raising flour.
00:44 And then all you do is to literally put your fruit into a pan.
00:51 Where did you get that cup from?
00:54 Oh, that was from Darren's grandma's.
00:57 Yeah, it's like a Glasgow tram.
01:00 So what's going on here?
01:02 Well, put everything into your pan, your fruit.
01:05 So the fruit's already in the pan?
01:07 Yeah, your 350 grams of mixed dried fruit,
01:09 110 grams of butter, 110 grams of soft brown sugar,
01:12 all go in the pan together.
01:14 And then you add your liquid.
01:16 And you can add water if you wish, or milk.
01:18 It doesn't have to be milk.
01:20 It sometimes thickens up quicker,
01:22 so you don't need to cook it for quite the length of time.
01:25 So what's happening now? You're melting everything together?
01:27 So very, very low light. Melt it.
01:30 And then when it's melted, simmer it gently for 10 minutes.
01:34 What does it do, the simmering?
01:36 Well, the fruit soaks up the liquid.
01:38 Now here, I'm lining it in.
01:41 So while it's simmering, very important, line your tin,
01:44 a 23-centimeter round tin with a loose bottom,
01:47 so it comes out dead easy.
01:49 So it's not cooling down now?
01:51 Yeah, because once it's simmered for the 10 minutes,
01:54 you need to let it cool for about half an hour.
01:56 Because the egg will go off?
01:58 Well, the egg starts to cook otherwise.
02:00 So then the next thing to do, really, is just give it a good stir,
02:03 and then pour your egg in evenly over the top of the surface.
02:07 Don't just pour it into one area.
02:09 And then give it a good beating with your spatula,
02:12 as you would do into your...
02:15 not quite as vigorously, but, you know,
02:18 sprinkle your flour in the same way, into your halves.
02:20 So you've done half the flour here, haven't you?
02:22 Yes, sprinkle it over the top, just half of it,
02:24 and beat that in as well.
02:27 And this is self-raising flour?
02:29 This is self-raising flour, yeah.
02:31 And then you put your other half in,
02:33 and then spoon it into your tin.
02:35 But at this point, if you want, you could add lemon zest.
02:38 OK, yeah, yeah, or lemon zest.
02:40 Or orange zest, yeah.
02:42 Or if you don't want to just use mixed spice,
02:44 you could, like I just did, put half a teaspoon of mixed spice,
02:47 and half a teaspoon of lemon.
02:49 So you could make it really Christmassy?
02:51 Yeah, you can make this into your Christmas cake,
02:53 if you want to double the quantity.
02:55 I like our Christmas cakes.
02:57 Oh, well, that's a foolproof Christmas cake.
02:59 But you see, this is great.
03:01 Oh, you squirt all over the place.
03:03 So I always get that last bit.
03:05 But at this point, you see, if you think about it,
03:07 you've not used a mixing bowl, you've only used a pan.
03:09 A pan, yeah. Presumably it gets harder here now.
03:11 It's quite a stiff dough, because what's happened is,
03:14 you've slightly cut your flour.
03:16 Yeah, because it's slightly wet.
03:18 And you think, gosh, this is going to be a dry cake.
03:20 But it's not.
03:21 Now, why do you do this next bit?
03:23 Because you're pressing it down, and then you're going to put a dimple in the middle.
03:25 Yeah, push it into your tin.
03:27 And once you've got all the mixture in the tin,
03:29 press it down with the back of your spatula, or your spoon,
03:31 or, you know, whichever you use.
03:33 And then once you've flattened the top down,
03:35 because it's got self-raising flour in,
03:37 it's going to come up in the centre.
03:39 More than the edges.
03:41 More than the edges.
03:43 So I always like to put a little dip in the centre,
03:45 not too much of a dip, or else you'll have a dip in the middle.
03:48 So it's literally just a small dent.
03:50 And then I've preheated my oven to 160.
03:55 And it's going to go in there, no change in the temperature,
03:58 leave it for an hour.
04:00 After an hour, take it out of the oven,
04:03 and then use a skewer to prick into the centre,
04:05 into a couple of places, and if it comes out clean, it's cooked.
04:09 [music]
04:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]