Cake

[Diane]

Nothing to do with gardening - (it's too windy!!) . I was talking to someone and describing a boiled fruit cake that I'd just made and they said if it was boiled (which they'd never heard of anyway ) then it doesn't count as being "cake". I countered that it was in a cake tin and it was baked in the oven so it was definitely "cake". We had quite an indepth conversation - needing details to be written down, comparisons between "puddings" and "cakes".

It's surprising how intense it all got.

P.S. This might count as a follow-on to my mild cheese post.....

[oldherbaceous]

Cook makes them and she said it is definitelt a cake.....and i'm not arguing with her....

Do you mean a, "mild cheese cake" Diane....

[alan refail]

Might have been a more complex argument if she'd been in Wales. Here teisen can mean cake, tart, biscuit or bun, or even placenta!
But what can you expect of a country where we call boiled seaweed bread- bara lawr/laver bread?
Breakfast this morning was fried laver bread and oatmeal with bacon and scrambled duck eggs.
To add further complexity, I make a very good Middle Eastern boiled orange cake. The orange is boiled then liquidised and added to a mixture of caster sugar eggs and ground almonds. But it is baked in the oven!

[PLUMPUDDING]

Can you tell us the recipe please Diane. I was looking for mine yesterday but couldn't find it and made an ordinary fruit cake instead.
It is a traditional way to make fruit cake which most people round here use. Your friend needs educating. Has she tried eating some?

The orange cake sounds delicious too Alan.

[tigerburnie]

SWMBO bakes a very nice boiled fruit CAKE and have to say it's a favourite in our house.

[Diane]

MY RECIPE.

BOILED FRUIT MIXTURE
4 oz Brown Sugar
8 oz margarine or butter
1lb mixed fruit
2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 Pint Milk

FOR THE CAKE MIXTURE
4 oz Glace Cherries
2 eggs beaten
2 oz chopped walnuts
12 oz Self Raising Flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Method

Place all the ingredients for the fruit mix in a large saucepan bring to the boil and allow to cool for about 30 minutes
Preheat oven to 160C / Gas 3 Fan. 150C
Add the cherries and nuts stir through
then add eggs and mix well, add the flour and fold through the mix.
Place the mixture in a 8" - deep cake tin. Tie some greaseproof paper around the outside of the tin so that the paper comes over the edges of the tin or optionally place over the top about half way through baking. Bake for 1 hours but , check to see if cooked throughly with a skewer. If not bake a little further until the skewer comes out clean from the cake. Allow to cool and either decorate with marzipan and royal icing, or dried apricots and cherries and glaze with melted apricot jam or plain is very nice too.

Enjoy.

[Primrose]

Is this one a Bread or a Cake then? . My husband makes a lovely teabread full of mixed dried fruit but without sugar in our bread maker. It's delicious and you really don't miss the sugar at all with all the fruit in it. Its very popular at our local fundraising cake sales. My onky issue is that there never seems to be any left for us to eat at home ! I think people think that if it's labelled No Added Sugar they're free to eat it without a guilty conscience!

[PLUMPUDDING]

Thanks Diane that is copied to use when I've eaten this one. Can't wait.

[JohnN]

In the original post doesn't the word boiled refer to the fruit, not the cake? ie a cake with boiled fruit in it?

[PLUMPUDDING]

Just a different way of mixing the ingredients John. Fat and sugar and milk with the fruit as the liquid ingredients and added to the rest of the dry ingredients and eggs so you don't have to cream the fat and sugar. It makes the fruit nice and moist as well, so it is a boiled fruit cake, not a boiled, fruit cake.

[robo]

Could you count the fruits as part of your 5 a day or is it 7 a day now