Do you have a secret hiding place? A place where you keep all your little keep sakes, I'm not talking about all your gold and riches I'm talking about those little trinkets that remind you of where you have been and what you have done through out your life. The tickets to the opera or theatre, newspaper clippings, photos of treasured things, cards that people have given you, anything really that you want to keep but don't really look at on a day to day basis. Well my Mum does, she likes to hid them in books, and not just her books, but my books too. She finds little things and puts them in a book.
The other day I was going through a very old cookbook that I have, in fact its so old and used it no longer has a cover, I would say it was very much loved. As I was making my way through this little book all sorts of little treasures where falling out at me, and then a recipe written in older style appeared, now I don't know where it came from or who's it was, but the little recipe written beautifully was called a 'magic fruit cake', well it had me at magic, I naturally had to make it.
On the back of the recipe it talks of people, their occupations, where they died and who they married. Because my Mum has been doing her family tree forest, I naturally presume she got talking to some one and they have written it down for her to give to me, and it has found its way into one of my many cookbooks waiting to be discovered and discovered it was.
It consists of five ingredients, apricot nectar (sounds like a drink from the gods, that had me too), brandy (a must in all good fruit cakes), fruit (wouldn't be a fruit cake without it, would it?), and some flour and some spice (I used 2, nutmeg and some cinnamon).
So with these simple five ingredients, that fact it said magic and that it fell out at me just in time for christmas, I simply had to bake it. All signs lead to cake.
Magic Fruit Cake
1 kg fruit (I just used sultana's)
2 cups apricot nectar or 1/2 cup of brandy and 1 1/2 cups of nectar)
2 cups wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons of spice ( the choice is yours)
Place the fruit, nectar and brandy into a big bowl and set aside for 24 hours.
Pre heat the oven to 160C
Sift the flour and spice together and stir through the fruit. It will look like there is to much flour and not enough liquid, but just keep stirring it in.
Pour the mixture into a lined round 23 cm cake tin and bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until cooked.
