Home cook: Sharmini Jayawardena
This is a vintage recipe I found and adapted to make it my own
INGREDIENTS
2 cups raisins
3/4 cup candied orange peel*, roughly chopped
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
1 cup dried figs, roughly chopped
1 cup pitted dates, roughly chopped
3/4 cup spiced liquor
226 grams butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
4 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground Ceylon cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsps spiced liquor
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Put all the dried fruit in a bowl and pour in the 3/4 cup spiced liquor. Let it sit for at least 12 hrs but ideally 2 days. Stirring occasionally.
Here is the recipe I followed to spice 1 cup of single malt whiskey.
(You can take a bottle from the bottom shelf for this, though.)
a. Stir in 15 grams of raw or brown sugar.
b. Steep 1 Ceylon cinnamon quill in the liquor in a tightly sealed bottle. Keep in a cool dark place for 8 days.
c. On the 8th day, strain the liquor through a fine strainer or remove all particles of the cinnamon quill from the liquor.
d. Make chili 🌶 oil.
Heat 5 tbsps vegetable oil and 1 tbsp chili flakes in a thick bottomed pan very gently over a low fire for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow the oil to cool completely before straining it through a fine-mesh sieve through a funnel, into a squeeze bottle, preferably.
e. Now add drops of chili oil to taste into the liquor. Since this spiced liquor is for making fruit cake and not cocktails, you can make it a wee bit spicier.
d. Return the flavored whiskey to a bottle that can be tightly sealed.
www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/how-to-make-homemade-fireball-whiskey/
Now back to the fruit cake.
2. Once fruit is ready preheat oven to 300 degrees F or 150 degrees C and grease a
9” x 9” or any other deep pan.
3. Beat together the butter and brown sugar until pale then add the eggs one at a time, beat well in between additions.
4. Add the fruit to the butter, sugar, egg mixture and stir until well combined.
5. Add the flour, spices and vanilla and stir until evenly mixed.
6. Pour into the prepared pan and cover with tin foil.
7. Bake for 2 1/2 hrs – 3 hrs or until toothpick pulls out clean.
I baked the cake slowly at 150 degrees C for 2 1/2 hrs and increased the heat to 200 degrees C for the next 1/2 hr.
8. Drizzle the remaining 2 tbsps spiced liquor on the warm cake.
Let cool before turning out.
Leave the cake to render for a few days before Christmas.
To keep the cake for a period of time, render it in the same baking pan for one to four months.
Thereafter, soak a muslin cloth or any soft cotton cloth in the same liquor and wrap the cake in it. Then coat the wrapped cake in powdered sugar. Then wrap it in cling film or tin foil and freeze it. This can be even kept for twenty-five years.
https://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/fruitcakesec.htm
My home made candied orange 🍊 peel.
* https://m.wikihow.com/Make-Candied-Orange-Peel
