A Blast From The Past

Last week I met up with an old blogging friend. When we first met [online] about 17 years ago her girls were still at school. Now one is a teacher, the other an artisanal baker. She said that being lactose and gluten intolerant she's very careful about what she eats. However there was one recipeone recipe from my blog, posted nearly 14 years ago*, which she still makes! And her daughter has tweaked the recipe and made it her own, to sell in the bakery. When I told Bob,  he said he thought a fruitcake was a good idea. So here is the post with recipe from 2011 - I plan to make it this week!

No eggs, no gluten, no added sugar…The Yes!Yes!Yes! cake is a brilliant birthday or Christmas cake – it suits almost everybody [except those with nut allergies] and cuts into a dozen slices or more. It is incredibly rich – after our first slices, we went in for much smaller pieces.

You need a 9” ‘springform’ cake tin like this

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• 200ml oil [almond or sunflower]
• 500ml apple juice
• 300g chopped dates
• 500g mixed raisins and sultanas
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 300g ground almonds
• 1tsp grated nutmeg
• grated zest of 1 orange
• 100g chopped walnuts
• icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 140°C. Pour oil and juice in medium sized saucepan, stir in dates, raisins and sultanas. Bring to boil then simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Transfer mixture to large mixing bowl, stir in bicarb - it will sizzle furiously! Leave to cool for 10 minutes. Line the tin with baking parchment or a non-stick liner. Fold almonds, nutmeg, zest and walnuts into dried fruit mixture. Pour into the tin.
3. Take a large piece of baking parchment which will cover surface of cake and go at least halfway down sides of tin. Cut a circle 1”in diameter from centre of paper, then tie paper firmly in place.
4. Bake the cake for 3 hours, testing after 2½ hours with a skewer [through the hole!] When skewer comes out clean, cake is done. Run knife round the edge, and remove collar, leaving cake to cool on the base.
5. The following day, the cake will be ready to eat. Dust with icing sugar. It will keep well in a tin for several weeks.

Enjoy!! * back then I made the cake because a vegan friend was coming to stay for the weekend