Christmas Fruit Cake

Tomorrow, we will have a Boxing Day party at my cousin's place. I plan to make a apple crumbled pie and fruit cake.

This is my first attempt baking a fruit cake. I just followed the recipe blindly. My friend, Huiz told me that as long as I can see bubbles in the cake batter, the cake will turn out just fine... That's how I access my cake. True enough, the cake turns out pretty well... :) However, I still need more time to 'understand' my microwave oven.

 

I've cut away the top part, cos it was quite tough and dry. The filling is just nice, not very soggy and not very dry... I like it.

The recipe is adapted from KC Forum: Boiled Fruit Cake by Connie. I actually halved the recipe (In italic)

Ingredients
(A)
1kg Mixed Fruits (400g Mixed fruits - but DH said too much fruits)
125g Brandy (65g Orange Juice - Can't take Alcohol)
125g Water (65g Water)
250g Butter (125g Butter)
150g Brown Sugar (Original recipe is 200g) (80g brown sugar - still can be reduced)

(B)
5 Large eggs, lightly beaten (3 large eggs)
1 TBsp Treacle (1 tsp of honey)
2 tsp grated orange rind (1 tsp grated orange rind)
1 tsp grated lemon rind

(C)
265g Plain flour (135g plain flour)
50g Self raising flour (25g self raising flour)
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

Method
1) Sift ingredients (C) together several times, set aside.
2) Combine ingredients (A) in a pan. Stir constantly over heat without boiling until sugar is dissolved.
3) Once sugar is dissolved, bring to boil, then reduce the heat to simmer covered for 10 minutes.
4) Transfer the hot mixture to a big mixing bowl and let it cool to room temperature.
5) *Greese a deep 9" round cake tin, line the base & sides with 2 layers of silicon paper. Prepare another 2 layers of silicon paper (Paper height: 7cm) to tie around the cake tin with cotton string. bringing the paper 5cm above the edge of cake tin.
6) Once the fruit mixture is cooled to room temperature, add eggs, treacle, and rinds and stir until combined.
7) Stir in sifted flour until combined. 
8) *Baked at 140C - 150C for about 2.5 hours or test it with skewer.
9) Cover the cake with aluminum foil and cool in cake tin.

I was using a disposable aluminum tray (215 x 110 x 55)mm to bake the cake. Baked with 160C for 1 hour and reduced the temp to 130C for another 10 minutes.