Boiled Fruit Cake

Asked by AnitaLambe. Answered on 23rd November 2013

Full question

There was a posted recipe for a simple boiled fruit cake on the web site before it changed format, it was a great recipe but I can't find it anymore. Do you have any suggestions on the recipe?

Our answer

We are sorry that you cannot find the recipe you have been looking for on the website. We would suggest looking at Nigella's Easy Action Christmas Cake recipe (from Feast, p92). In this recipe the dried fruits are put in a saucepan with sugar, rum and butter and simmered. This helps the fruits to absorb some of the liquid and plump up and is a good alternative to soaking the fruits ahead of making a cake. The ingredients also include chestnut spead which helps to make the cake moist.

Another recipe worth considering is Nigella's Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruit Cake (from Christmas, p180). This cake also uses the fruit simmering method and has proved to be a very popular cake over the last few years. The Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake (from Christmas and also on the Nigella website) is a blonde version of the chocolate cake. If the cake will be consumed fairly quickly then you may also like to look at The Non-Cake Maker's Christmas Cake (from Feast, p98) which uses store-bought mincemeat rather than having to soak dried fruits in advance.