I decided this week to hunt out recipes from Mum’s collection that you could make without flour, pasta or rice, which sadly panic buying wiped off the supermarket shelves last week. I found this Chocolate Almond Cake, it’s heavy on eggs, but if you have enough to make it I reckon it will cheer the family up.
As far as I can work out this recipe came from the bottom of a new Willow 8″ round cake tin, probably back in the 50s. Between my own cake tins and those I inherited from Mum I haven’t bought a new cake tin for years so I have no idea if they still come with a recipe, but if they do I hope it’s a bit more accurate than this one, as they’ve left out the quantity of tinned pineapple to use. A 440g can should work, baked in a 20cm cake tin and at 180o.
I’ve never made a Hummingbird cake and hadn’t heard of it until I found this recipe. Wikipedia tells me that the Hummingbird Cake was created on the island of Jamaica and was named after the island’s national bird and that it’s been a favourite of American county fairs and baking competitions since the 1970s. This one is made using pecans, but you can use walnuts, if you prefer.
Back in the day Christmas cakes and pudding were often made using lard, but that’s not easy to get these days and most recipes use butter instead. This cake substitutes copha for lard. I haven’t made it, but think I might do it next year as it sounds interesting.
Yes, this is a fruit cake, but it’s only October so I’m not suggesting it should be your Christmas Cake. It won’t be long before it’s time to get the Christmas recipes out and make the pudding and cake, but think there’s a few more weeks before you need to do that . Sadly these days I only make fruit cakes at Christmas, but really they’re an easy cake to make, they keep well and ingredients like the pineapple and carrot in this recipe add extra flavour. Worth making all year round really……
I’ve lost count of the number of fruit cakes recipes I’ve read over the years, but this is the first one I’ve seen with a cup of coconut in it. It could be an interesting change and as it’s a quick to make, it’s probably worth trying out.
Finding cake recipes that are gluten free is easier in 2019 than it was back in the 1980s, so this fruit loaf was probably very unusual and a joy to find back then. It has the added bonus that it keeps for 2 months and can be frozen – although it wouldn’t be cheap to make. Then what gluten free product is cheap?
