Soldier’s Fruit Cake

This cake has a very interesting history, it has been given to me by Jan, a dear friend and distant cousin who lives in Melbourne, Australia.  She is of Cornish heritage, [of course] and this was in her grandmother’s treasured hand written recipe book! It was originally printed in the Kalgoorlie Miner, the local newspaper of the inland, Western Australian town, where so many Cornishmen went to seek their fortune in the gold mines. Jan also found it on their National  Newspaper Archive service. Jan is pretty sure it was a WW2 recipe, when families in Australia were heavily into supporting ‘the boys’ away at war and sending fruit cakes to them was a popular thing women did. The original recipe was, believe it or not, double the amount! If I had made the full amount, we would have been eating it for weeks.

After looking at the finished mix, I decided on a 8” round tin to bake it. No timings or temps were given, so am guessing very very low and very slow, as all good fruit cakes are baked!

Pre heat you fan oven to 130C and line your tin.

½ lb plain flour

2 oz SR flour

¼ teaspoonful salt

¼ grated nutmeg

½ teaspoonful cinnamon

¼ teaspoonful mixed spice

4 eggs

8 oz butter

8 oz sugar [I guessed soft brown, and used light]

12 oz sultanas

6 oz raisins

6 oz currants

¼ lb dates

¼ lb candied peel

2 tablespoons brandy

1 tablespoon dark caramel [see note]

½ teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda in ½  dessertspoonful boiling water

a few almonds if liked - I did and used whole blanched roughly chopped

I used the creaming method, so beat the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy, whisked, then beat in the eggs, along with a little of the flour, then gradually added all the other ingredients.

Tip into your prepared tin and roughly level off. Bake for 1 hr at 130C, Turn down to 120C for a further hour, then 110C for a final hour. [3 hours in total].

Absolutely delicious! So moist and full of the most amazing flavour. I soaked a little brandy over the top and let the cake rest before cutting, after 4 days.

This can be used as a celebration cake, of course. It keeps very well, as you can imagine. If doubling the amount for a Xmas Cake, you will need to increase the timings.

Note: for the caramel, I melted a dessertspoonful of dark muscovado, a teaspoonful of soft butter, some vanilla extract and a small dash of cream, until melted and coming to the boil, then cooled. Or just use golden syrup or treacle?

Note: For anyone interested in Cornish genealogy, Jan’s family were Olivers, who lived in the Helston and the Sithney area. Where many of my paternal family also came from.

Note: from this recipe we can gather that Australia, while it did have some rationing during the war, it was no where near as severe as in Europe. Especially as folk had their own fruits in their gardens.