Candied Fruit Loaf Cake or Tutti Fruti Cake

Every family has their favorite fruit cake. Fruit cakes or the tutti fruit cakes are such a staple in every household. This is a beginner’s cake recipe of a candied fruit cake added with almond meal.

When I was younger my mum, used to make this cake. She had her version of fruit cake with raisins and sultanas – golden brown slices of bliss. We mostly had that in the winters around Christmas.

A few days back while doing my grocery shopping I chanced upon these beautiful packs of multicolored candied fruits. I knew it at that moment that I need to recreate my mum’s fruit cake. This one is the simplest version of a dense moist loaf cake with candied fruits, almond meal and toasted almonds. This is so easy that if you are a beginner to baking cakes – you should start with this.

I like almonds in cakes, I think when you toast almonds they give a beautiful aroma. I don’t know how people slice almonds so thin! I never can manage such a thing with only a knife. I am using both chopped almonds and almond meal for this beginner’s cake recipe.

This loaf cake was over along with some tea by the one and a half men in the house in no time. Well the half man – my little one had half a slice – way too much for him, but didn’t quite like it when I didn’t offer any more of it to him. So I am guessing this must have been pretty nice. He’s into that picky eating phase now BTW.

You want Egg less – Not a problem!

There are quite a lot of egg less versions of fruit cake recipes available on the internet, but I somehow don’t like egg less cakes. I like my cakes soft, airy. This cake however is dense and is not going to rise too much. So in case you want to make this egg less substitute butter with ½ a cup of oil and eggs with 1 cup of curd or yogurt which is whisked till smooth. Add ¼ tea spoon of baking soda. And you will have an egg less candied fruit cake! Simple.

Let’s get started

This is a pretty simple vanilla cake where you start off by preheating your oven at 180C/320F.

Grease a loaf tin with butter / cooking spray and dust lightly with flour.

In a separate bowl sift together flour and baking powder. Mix ground almond/almond meal to it. Take a bowlful from this mix and add candied fruits or tutti fruit to it. This will help the fruit bits to stay in its place and not sink in the batter.

Cream together butter and sugar with either a hand mixer or a wire whisk. I start off with butter first, I add sugar when the butter is already creamy.

Pro Tip:

Sugar that we get in this part of the world is like gigantic crystals. So I break them down in the mixer in a more powdery granulated form. It’s like making your own icing sugar and storing it – saves some money! But this is not as fine as icing sugar, you will still have little granules. This will also save your time in creaming butter and sugar

We are going to add eggs, one at a time – so that its creamy and you don’t have liquids flying out of your mixing bowl! Add vanilla – if you have pods – excellent, or else pure vanilla extract is also fine. If nothing else get an artificial vanilla essence. Flavor of extract is best by the way.

I add some lemon zest in the cake batter – it gives a wonderful aroma. I have seen people use orange juice, lime juice etc. in their fruit cakes but since this is like a beginner version we’ll stick to just zest of 1 lemon.

Pro Tip:

While taking out zest of a lemon/ lime/orange don’t grate more than twice at one spot. If you get that white part under the skin everything will turn bitter.

Mix the dry ingredients with the butter-sugar-egg mix and fold in nicely. Mix in the candied fruits. Transfer the batter into the loaf tin and sprinkle chopped almonds from top.

This is how it goes in!

Baking

Bake it for 1 hour or till a toothpick when inserted at the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool it on a wire rack for 20-25 minutes before slicing it up.

Now tell me, isn’t that super simple?

Serving

You can serve it with tea or coffee – it is perfect for a tea cake, Make this in your high tea party, your guests will appreciate it, I am sure. Or if you are like me, have it any time! This can be stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 days. I would warm this up before having. I like warm fruit cakes

Do you like such simple cakes? Do you want me to share some more simple cakes? May be more versions of fruit cakes? Or more beginner’s cake or baking recipes? Let me know your thoughts guys. 

Candied Fruit Loaf Cake or Tutti Fruti cake

2016-07-16 17:14:06

Serves 4

An easy beginner's cake recipe using candied fruits, almond meals and toasted almonds

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Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

1 hr

Total Time

1 hr 15 min

Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

1 hr

Total Time

1 hr 15 min

Ingredients

1. Table butter - 1 cup (225g) at room temperature
2. Fine Sugar - 1 cup (210 grams)
3. 3 large eggs at room temperature
4. All purpose Flour - 2 cups (260g)
5. Ground Almond/ Almond meal - 3/4th cup (75g)
6. baking Powder - 1 tea spoon
7. Chopped almond - 1/3 cup
8. Tutti Fruti/ Candied fruits - 1 cup
9. Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon or 2 vanilla pod extracts

Instructions

1. Pre Heat oven at 180C/325F
2. Grease a loaf tin with butter/cooking spray and dust flour on the sides
3. In a bowl sift together flour and baking powder
4. Mix in almond meal or ground almond
5. Reserve 1/2 a bowl of the flour mix and add candied fruits to it
6. Mix them with a spoon so that fruit bits are coated with flour nicely
7. In a mixing bowl cream butter and sugar
8. Add eggs at a time
9. Add vanilla and lemon zest
10. Fold in the flour mix
11. Add candied fruits
12. Transfer in the loaf tin and sprinkle chopped almonds on top
13. Bake for 1 hour or till a tooth pick inserted at the center comes out clean
14. Cool it on a wire rack for 20 mins
15. Serve warm with tea or coffee

By Tina Basu

Twinkling Tina Cooks https://twinklingtinacooks.com/