This is another of Mum’s finds in the Woman’s Day. To be honest I can’t imagine her ever buying and using a packet of cake mix, she’d have made the cake from scratch. She made cupcakes and butterfly cakes that way so I’m sure she’d have done the same for these.
I think the comments that go with this recipe that Mum cut out of the newspaper make it sound somewhat unusual “economical, keeps for ages and can be made as a cake”. Worth a try maybe?
These were another of Mum’s afternoon tea and supper delights. They always seemed to me to be a little more fancy that my birthday butterfly cakes. I haven’t made them or eaten them in a long time, but they were great back when I was little.
I always associate these little cakes with my birthday parties. They were a treat Mum would make to put on the party table and I guess after two sons she was more than happy to make something ‘girlie’ for my birthday. She did make them at other times for afternoon tea with her friends and for suppers, but I still think of them as my birthday butterflies.
As you can see this recipe comes from one of Mum’s original handwritten notebooks. It’s hard to read so I’ve rewritten in out down below. These days there’s lots and lots of different Banana Cake recipes, but this old one was way before you could buy sour cream, so you had to make your own sour milk by adding lemon juice to warm milk. Easy to do and it makes a lovely moist cake.
The first Christmas after I got married, my husband had to work on Christmas Day so I met him at lunchtime and we had a picnic lunch in the Botanical Gardens, which was a lovely way to celebrate our first Christmas together. That first Christmas also meant my first Christmas cake baking effort. It was a disaster, a soggy undercooked cake – ruined. When I told Mum she smiled and told me to mashing it all up in a bowl add a cup of cold tea and recook it as a pudding and to this day I’m still amazed that it worked. My cooking improved somewhat after that and this Dutch Fruit Cake became the recipe I used for many years. Adding the mixed peel and nuts and brushing the cake with brandy while still hot makes the cake a little more Christmasy.
DUTCH FRUIT CAKE
Line a cake tin with a layer of brown paper and a layer of baking paper. Boil together butter, sugar, water, fruit, spices, lemon juice for 3 minutes. Set aside to cool. When cool stir in beaten eggs, flours, treacle and lastly bi-carb soda dissolved in boiling water. Bake in a moderate oven 180o for 2 hours. Mixed peel and nuts can be added if like. For a Christmas touch – when still hot from the oven pierce the cake with a skewer and brush with brandy.
This is the recipe I usually use to make my Christmas Cake. Back in 2001 I doubled the recipe to make a two tiered cake for Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary, which I had decorated in the 1940s style of their wedding, it looked and tasted great. The recipe came to me from a friend who made it as a Wedding Cake for her daughter. As you can see it was passed onto her from her friend ‘Audrey’ so it has quite a history. I always add the extra prunes and apricots and it makes a lovely cake that lasts as long as you can keep the family away from it.
Last weekend I made our Christmas Pudding so this weekend it’s time to make the Christmas cake. Usually I make my cake a bit earlier than this, but I decided to make this Festive Fruit Cake and it doesn’t need to be done as early as the more traditional cakes. I haven’t made it for some years, the ingredients are a bit expensive as it’s full of glace fruit and brazil nuts, but my husband really likes it. The original recipe was given to Mum by her best friend Tuppy, so I’ve always known it as Tuppy’s Christmas Cake.
Mum made lots of different types of fruit cakes, loaves and slices and adding pumpkin to the mix wasn’t that unusual. The only unusual ingredient in this recipe is the apricot nectar, not something that you’d normally put in a fruit cake and not something you’d usually have in your cupboard. If you wanted to you could easily substitute it with fruit juice or water.
When I was growing up the one thing that that Dad always had growing in the garden was rhubarb. Its giant green leaves and red stalks filled one corner of his veggie patch and never seemed to die off. Luckily Dad liked eating it so Mum stewed it up with some sugar and served it with custard for dessert – quite often. I don’t know about my brothers, but it was never one of my favourites and I’ve been greatly surprised to see that it has come back into fashion – who would have thought? I think this recipe at least would be sweet enough to counteract some of the tartness I didn’t like.
Beb's Recipe Drawer 