Mandarin Orange Fruit Cake

This is an usual cake with a different combination of fruits. The colour combination is good and the slices look very attractive. Yummy too. The recipe is quite old and harks back to my childhood in the 50s when a tin of mandarin oranges was quite a luxury. This cake keeps well and is still moist and just as delicious four days later.

Once again, I have decided to use a ring tin, trying to persuade more folk to use them! If you don’t have one, there are plenty around and they are just great for decorating and slicing. I love them!

I have used a small ring tin, capacity about  2 pints or so. Pre heat your fan oven to 160C. Butter the tin well, then sprinkle over some flour, tapping out the lose flour over the sink. But you can use a 7” or 8” round if you prefer.

6 oz softened butter

6 oz caster sugar

3 large eggs

9 oz plain flour

a generous teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 fl oz buttermilk [or milk]

about 3 oz roughly chopped walnuts, plus more for the topping

4 oz glace cherries, roughly chopped, tossed in another scant tablespoon flour

small can mandarins, well drained [keep some of the juice]

Cream the butter and sugar, along with the vanilla bean paste, then add the eggs, one at a time.

Mix the flour and baking powder and sift it into the mix along the buttermilk.

Set aside three or four mandarins for the decoration, then roughly chop the rest. Add this, then the cherries and walnuts to the mix and tip into your prepared tin. Make a slight well along the middle to allow for the rise. Bake for about 50 mins until firm to the touch, then invert onto a cooling rack.

When cold, make an icing with a little of the mandarin juice and some icing sugar. Spread over the top of the cake, allowing some to drizzle down the sides and decorate with the mandarins and some more halved walnuts.

Such a moist cake that keeps well for several days [not the orange slices on top though]. My family absolutely loves it.