Printable Recipe
Boiled Fruit Cake
A traditional British boiled fruit cake made with dried fruit, sugar, butter, egg, water, and self-raising flour, baked until golden and fragrant.
Prep time
30 min
Cook time
1 hr 15 min
Total time
2 hrs 25 min
Yield
8
Ingredients
8
Steps
10
Filed under: dessert, cake, baking, over 1 hour.
Source channel: Caroline's Easy Baking Lessons
Key ingredients
grams Mixed dried fruit - raisins, currants, sultanas etc, grams Sugar - granulated, caster or light brown, grams Butter or Margarine/Baking Spread ), Egg, Large, beaten ), Water ).
Ingredients
- 340 grams Mixed dried fruit - raisins, currants, sultanas etc
- 113 grams Sugar - granulated, caster or light brown
- 113g grams Butter or Margarine/Baking Spread ((4 oz, ½ cup or 1 stick))
- 1 Egg, Large, beaten ((US X Large))
- 150 ml Water ((5 floz, ⅔ cup or ¼ pint))
- 225 grams Self-raising Flour
- 1 tsp Mixed spice (optional) ((Pumpkin Spice alternative))
- Demerara Sugar for the topping ((Optional))
Method
- Line a deep 6-7”( 15-18 cm) round cake tin with baking/parchment paper, on the bottom and up the sides (lining the sides helps with cakes that are rich in fruit and require a longer baking time and reduces the chances of the sides cooking too quickly). Grease the paper in position with either butter, cooking/baking spray or try lining paste (see notes below).
- Place butter, sugar, the dried fruit and water in a pan and simmer on a low-medium heat, for 20 minutes (See Photo 1). You do not want it boiling, so as the fruit absorbs the water and makes for nice soft plump fruit. Stir occasionally so that the mixture doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. (See Photo 2 and 3 below)
- Remove pan from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. (See Photo 4 below). Allow the mixture to cool down. I left mine for about 40 minutes.
- Pre-heat your oven 170°c/150°c Fan Oven/325°f/Gas Mark 3
- Now add the beaten egg and stir in the sieved flour and the mixed spice/pumpkin spice if you are using it. (See Photo 5 above)
- Turn the mixture into your lined cake tin and spread evenly. At this stage you can sprinkle demerara sugar or sugar crystals over the top of the cake. (See Photo 7 above)
- Bake in the oven for approximately 1¼ hours. Check with a cocktail stick that the cake is cooked, it should come out clean of crumbs.
- Remove from oven and leave in the tin to cool down for 15 mins. (See Photo 8 above)
- Turn out to cool on a wire rack and remove the baking/parchment paper carefully. (See Photo 9 above).
- Leave to cool before cutting & serving. The cake is quite fragile on the same day it is baked, so for better cut slices we recommend to cut & serve the following day (if you can wait!). Photo below of Caro's cake using light brown sugar.