Easy Ginger Fruit Cake

I don't often make fruit cakes. Somehow something always goes wrong - either the mixed fruit just sinks to the bottom or the cake crumbles easily. My husband, Anand,  had requested me to make a fruit cake while he was in Beijing last week. It is often a challenge to make fruit cakes (or any cake) for him as  he isn't fond of butter and whole egge. 

Just the other day, he was commenting on how he had lost the taste for egg  yolks after coming to Singapore. He finds the eggs here in Singapore have a very strong egg smell. It can be overpowering for someone who is very conscious of the smell. Even I who is someone who has grown up in Singapore find certain eggs very eggy.  Fortunately, I have discovered a certain brand which doesn't seem to have that strong a smell.     

​Anyway, back to the matter at hand, I used to find it difficult to make eggs rise without any eggs and butter. Recently, Anand seemed to have bend the rules regarding eggs! So after a very long time, I baked a cake for Anand with eggs and butter in it. Anand found the butter flavor a tad too strong - my next try -  to mix half the butter with sunflower oil.  Let's see how that goes. But overall, I found the cake quite nice - not too sweet and light fruit cake flavor. Best part- it is so easy to put together. No soaking of the fruits overnight, no beating of butter and sugar...boil and mix everything, that's it!

Ingredients (makes one 20 cm square cake)

• 1.5 cups self raising flour
• 1.5 cups plain (all purpose flour)
• 1 block unsalted butter (227gm)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 200gm mixed fruits
• ​1/2 cup glaced ginger, chopped
• 1/3 cup apple juice
• ​2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C or 360 F.
• ​Grease and line a square 20 cm baking tin with grease proof paper.
• Sift both flours in a large mixing bowl.
• ​Combine butter,  sugar, mixed fruits, apple juice, glaced ginger and ground ginger in a medium pan. Stir over low heat until butter has melted and the sugar dissolves.

• Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.

• Remove from heat and stir in soda. Set aside for a while to cool. Mixture will turn frothy.

• Add eggs and mix well.

• Add fruit mixture to the sifted flours, stir with a metal spoon until just combined. Do not over mix.

• Pour mixture into prepared tin and smooth the surface. Bake for 45mins to an hour or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake in the tin for an hour before turning out and cutting.