I've been in a baking mood lately. The problem comes with finding the time to actually do it. I'm hoping to get to making a Christmas cake over the weekend, but in the meantime, I decided to take a crack at something else from Edmonds Cookery Book: fruit sponge. And it came out pretty well, if I do say so myself! Not exactly to plan, certainly, but perfectly tasty and edible.

I don't really have much in the way of baking dishes, so I ended up baking it in a pie plate, which actually seemed to work out rather well. The recipe calls for stewed fruit, so I decided that this would be a good opportunity to use some of the tinned boysenberries gifted to us from New Zealand. The berries had quite a bit of syrup with them. I drained a lot of it off -- nearly 400mL! -- but they were still pretty soupy. And the sponge batter turned out fairly thick, so when I tried to spoon it on top it just sank straight to the bottom in a big lump. When I put it in the oven, it looked like I was going to have an island of sponge poached in a sea of boysenberries. By the time it came out of the oven though, the cake had spread out across the surface of the berries to cover most of the top. It's still not quite what it's supposed to look like, but it's honestly better than I was expecting. I'd aim for a little less moisture in the fruit next time and I'd probably pull it out of the oven five minutes earlier, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with it!

Fruit Sponge

Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 2 c. stewed fruit (eg. apples, boysenberries, apricot, etc.), sweetened to taste
• 125g butter¹, softened
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 large (or 3 medium) eggs
• 1 c. pastry flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 Tbsp. milk

Directions

1. Pour fruit into baking dish (or pie plate) and place in oven at 375°F (190°C)².
2. Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Sift in flour and baking powder.
5. Stir in milk.
6. Spoon batter over hot fruit and bake for 35-40 minutes.

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¹ Normally I use salted butter in my baking, but my understanding is that salted butter is the default in NZ, so I used salted for this. It seems to have worked out well. ^Back
2 It's important to get the fruit good and hot before adding the sponge batter. If the fruit is too cool, the sponge won't cook properly. So sayeth Edmonds. ^Back