Paul's Cherry and Brandy Fruit Cake

 

This is my go to fruit cake recipe, all year round, when I'm not baking my Rum fruit cakes at Christmas time. This cake is also festively flavoured enough to grace your Christmas table, when dressed up in ribbons and bows.  Laced with brandy and adorned with whole glacé cherries throughout, it is a delicious cake to have on standby in your pantry or refrigerator when needed. This one will be travelling away with us shortly.

Our schoolteacher and foodie friend Paul, whom I have mentioned in some of my posts over the years gave me this recipe, which I am so grateful for. We had eaten this cake at Paul's house many times, and now I bake it regularly as well. I remember one year when Paul made many of them in large muffin tins, for sale at a local fête, and they all did the vanishing act. It's such a versatile recipe. It makes two 20 cm cakes, and I love that the second one can then be given to friends and family as a gift. Shannon our daughter adores this cake, especially the flavour of the brandy and the whole glacé cherries dotted throughout. This cake was originally Paul's Mother's recipe, and I think it's lovely that her recipe continues on today. She was a very good cook from what I can gather from Paul's stories.

When we are travelling, I often take one of these cakes with us, it's a taste of home, and wonderful with a cuppa along the way, and it keeps fresh really well, as fruit cakes do. Then there is also one in the refrigerator for when we arrive back home.

I just made two of these cakes this morning, and the aroma of them baking throughout the house was heavenly. My Mum loved baking fruit cakes, and she always said if a large spoon stood upright in the mixture, it was a good cake. Can you just see the handle standing up alone in this cake mixture?

This mornings Cherry and Brandy fruit cakes, ready for the oven

The weather is cooling down beautifully here now, so it's time to bake fruit cakes, with lots of aromatic spices, fruit and brandy.

Let's Cook:

Boiled Ingredients:

250 grams butter
1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of water
3/4 cup brandy
1/2 kg sultanas
1/2 kg raisins
2 pkts glace cherries, left whole
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp mixed spice

Method:

Place all the above ingredients in a large saucepan, melt the butter and slowly bring the ingredients to the boil. Simmer until the fruit softens, add 1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda, stir. The mixture will froth up excitedly because of the baking soda. Give the mixture a stir. Remove from the heat to cool. I sometimes leave my fruit cake mixtures to cool overnight, ready to bake in the morning.

Let's cook:

To a large bowl add the following ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Plain Flour

1 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour

3 eggs beaten plus the cooled boiled fruit, and mix thoroughly. 

Be sure to catch all of the flours from the base of your mixing bowl and mix in.

Cook in one tin or two 20 cm baking tins(I prefer two), or even large muffin tins. It is preferable to line the cake tins with two layers of brown paper to prevent them from burning.

In two 20 cm tins, cook for one hour and ten minutes at 160 degrees.

This was the first of Paul's Brandy and Cherry fruit cakes that I ever made. In this one I remember that I halved the cherries, now I don't. They need to remain whole or they become lost. Since then I've made many, and I've never had a failure.

Best wishes,

Pauline