IN THE POT | FRUIT ‘N’ NUT CAKE

…2kg of mixed fruit and nut…

It’s not often I have a baking disaster but this one was a doozy.  Since becoming a mother the part of my brain that I used to use for logical thinking, reading and brushing my hair has now been replaced with “DON’T LET THE BABY DIE!!!!!”.  Which is handy, you know, for keeping the baby alive but it sucks arse when it comes to living life like I used to.

I find myself increasingly forgetting things (like ordering groceries for the grown ups), not reading things correctly and making foolish mistakes (did I tell you about my Swoon?).  Well last week the inability to think struck again.

My Mum had raved about this egg and dairy free cake she used to like to get from a Health Food Shop in the Cat & Fiddle Arcade in Townsville when we were kids and how through a twist of fate some 20 years later she’d come to have the recipe.

Well, she made the cake and suggested that it might be something I like to make so HUBBY could have it in his lunch box and take it to golf with him for a hit of energy.  Ever the dutiful daughter I decided to give it a go.

So while doing our online grocery order I decided to order the ingredients for the cake.  I put the order in and then put the whole thing from my mind.

When I finally got around to making the cake I decided to use the notes I’d written up instead of consulting the actual recipe.  (Should have sent warning alarms off here!)  I read the recipe and thought “Holy crap 2kg of fruit and nut seems a little excessive…”. But I remembered Mum commenting on how much fruit and nut was in the cake so I pushed forward.  I put a call into Mum for clarification… no answer.

I got out the ingredients and had another WTF moment. I only ordered 370g of mixed nuts? The recipe clearly stated I need 1kg – why wouldn’t I have ordered 1kg like I did with the mixed fruit?

…here’s the cake ready to go in the oven: mmm… appetizing…

Cue made panic looking through the cupboard to cobble together a kilo of mixed nuts from the staples.  (Needless to say there’s a lot of almond in this cake now!).  I managed to get 700g of mixed nuts so I made up the difference with 300g of dried fruit I was also able to pull from the staples.

Next issue, with my 2kg of mixed fruit and nut made up I had to find a bowl big enough to hold them and that would still fit in the microwave. Thank goodness I have a bowl collection to rival Imelda Marcos’s shoe collection!

With the fruit and nut drenched in fruit juice (I had NFI what juice to use so again I tried to call my Mum – no answer – so I winged it and used Tropical Fruit Juice) and put in the microwave as per the recipe I went about my day and didn’t give it another thought. When I came back to check it had cooled down and I could finish making the recipe up to bake it I was once again struck with how much fruit and nut there was compared to the other ingredients.

I soldiered on and made the cake, popped it in the oven and hoped for the best.  Well the best didn’t turn up… a fruit brick cake did instead.

…I could use this to make a cyclone proof house (but not fruit fly resistent)…

It was at this point that I was finally able to reach my Mother on the phone to talk to her about the recipe and compare end products…

Me: “What fruit juice did you use? The recipe doesn’t specify so I used a Tropical Fruit blend.”

Mum: “I used a V8 mix, it’s supposed to be good for your bones.”

Me: “Does yours look like a brick?”

Mum: “Yes! When I took it out of the oven all the fruit looked browned and burnt and it didn’t look edible…”

Me: “Did you find the flour didn’t really balance out all the fruit and nut?”

Mum: “Yes! But when I put it in the fridge overnight and came back to it the next morning to try it it was fine.  I tried some and it was nice.”

Me: “I made a mistake ordering the mixed nuts and only order 370g so had to cobble together the other 700g from nuts we had in our pantry. There’s a lot of almond in this cake!”

Mum: “What do you mean 1kg mixed nuts? It’s a kilo of mixed fruit.”

Me: “Yeah, and there’s also a kilo of mixed nuts.”

Mum: “That’s a cup!”

Me: “…………”

So, here’s the Fruit ‘n’ Nut Cake recipe that my mum gave me, that was given to her by her pottery instructor and is from a self published cookbook by the lady who used to run the health food store in the Cat & Fiddle Arcade in Townsville and is called Karen.

Fruit ‘n’ Nut Cake

1kg Mixed Fruit

1 cup Mixed Nuts

1 dessert spoon Mixed Spice

1¾ cup Fruit Juice

2½ cups Wholemeal Self-raising Flour

1. Preheat oven to 150ºC (fan forced).  Line a 25cm round cake tin with foil.

2. Combine mixed fruit, mixed nuts, mixed spice and 1 cup of fruit juice together in a microwave safe bowl and place in microwave on high for 8 minutes.  Allow to cool.

3. Once fruit and nut mix has cooled mix in the 2½ cups of wholemeal self-raising flour and the remaining ¾ cup of fruit juice.

4. Bake in oven for approximately 1¼ hours, or until a skewer placed into the middle of the cake and then removed comes out clean.

Source: Karen’s Kitchen

As a side note, we didn’t have any mixed spice either so I had to make my own (how awesome is the knowledge contained on the internet!)

Mixed Spice

1 tbsp cinnamon, ground

1 tsp coriander, ground

1 tsp nutmeg, ground

1/2 tsp ginger, ground

1/4 tsp allspice, ground

1/4 tsp cloves, ground

!. Buy the spices already ground! Ok, if you can’t do that you’ll have to ground the spice you have up in a mortar and pestel or in a grinder.

2. Once you have the ground spices measure out and pour into a glass jar (or any storage device that will let you shake it around).

3. Put the lid on the jar and shake to mix (I gave the jar to Little Man and let him mix it – he did a fabulous job until he threw the glass jar onto the kitchen tiles).

4. Use. (Make sure you use this mix up within 2 months of making it!)

Source: WikiHow