Sultana & Lemon Fruit Cake

I had most of a lemon left over after making my gigantic Christmas cake and this recipe looked intriguing. I love lemon cake. And this one's heavy on the raisins and light on the candied peel which also bodes well. I also found the idea of boiling the raisins appealing. Historically most of my issues with fruit cake have been textural, rather than a flavour thing. So getting the raisins nice and soft and going relatively light on the candied peel all seemed rather promising. Next time I'd just run the raisins under some cold water or something to make sure they're cooled off properly before adding them to the batter. They were still quite warm when I put them in and that seemed to melt the butter in the batter and deflate it a bit. The cake still turned out fine, but I'd be interested to see if cold raisins would yield an even better result.

Sultana & Lemon Cake

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 3 c. sultanas
• 250g (salted) butter, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 3 large (or 4 medium) eggs
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 2 c. cake flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 c. candied lemon peel¹
• 1/4 c. lemon juice
• 1/4 c. milk

Directions

1. Add water to the sultanas to cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool.
2. Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mixing well after each addition.
4. Mix in lemon zest.
5. Sift flour and baking powder together and fold into egg mixture.
6. If the raisins are still warm, run them under some cold water to cool them down.
7. Once the raisins are cool, stir them into the batter along with the candied peel.
8. Stir in milk and lemon juice.
9. Pour batter into a buttered and floured 8" round cake tin.
10. Bake at 325°F (160°C) for 90 minutes.
11. Remove from oven, cover with a clean cloth, and leave to cool in tin.

Edmonds left the recipe off there. Having tried it, I think a simple lemon glaze would go very well with this cake. It's fine as it is, but I do think just a bit of glaze on top would improve it. My grandma always used a clear glaze (of granulated sugar and lemon juice) on her lemon bread and it works beautifully there. For this particular cake, however, I feel like a white glaze (using icing sugar) would be more appropriate.

Lemon Glaze

Ingredients

• 2 c. icing sugar
• 1/4 c. lemon juice

Directions

1. Whisk sugar and juice together until smooth.
2. Pour over cooled cake and enjoy.

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I ended up using candied citron peel for mine because my only options were mixed peel or citron. Given the options, I figured citron would be the closest option. If I'd had more time and energy, I would've done up a batch of homemade candied lemon peel and used that. The citron peel seems to have worked out reasonably well, although it does add little green spots to the otherwise yellow cake². ^Back
I might be tempted to try making it with golden raisins (or a mix of golden raisins and sultanas) next time just to play up the yellow tones even more. ^Back

The Mother of All Fruitcakes!

I've never been terribly partial to fruitcakes. That said, I haven't even tried a fruitcake in something like fifteen years, so I have no idea whether my fruitcake tastes and opinions have changed since then. And catalyst is a huge fan of fruitcake. On top of that I have a fondness for old traditional recipes and a fascination with baked good that need to age before eating.

Edmonds has an entire section dedicated solely to fruitcakes. Admittedly, it's a small section, but still! It has a fruitcake chapter! This includes a whole range of cakes. Everything from a light, blonde lemony cake with sultanas and candied lemon peel as the only fruit... all the way up to the "rich Christmas cake" which includes seven kinds of fruit + almonds, orange juice, rum (or brandy or sherry), and two types of citrus zest. This cake takes two days to make, four hours in the oven, and is meant to sit for a full two months before serving. It also weighs just shy of five kilos! This cake does NOT mess around.

Rich Christmas Cake

Very slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 c. orange juice
• 3/4 c. dark rum¹ or brandy + an extra 2 Tbsp. for soaking
• 2 Tbsp. grated orange zest
• 500g dried currants
• 500g raisins
• 2 c. sultanas
• 2 c. chopped dates
• 150g crystallized ginger, chopped
• 150g mixed peel
• 150g glacé cherries, halved
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract
• 2 tsp. grated lemon zest
• 1 c. slivered almonds²
• 2 1/2 c. strong flour ("high grade", bread, or all-purpose)
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 250g (salted) butter, softened
• 1 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. treacle³
• 5 large eggs (or 6 medium eggs)

Directions

1. Combine orange juice, 3/4 c. rum, and orange zest in a pot and bring to a boil.
2. Combine dried fruit in a large bowl and pour juice mixture over it. Cover and leave to soak overnight.
3. The next day, add the vanilla, almond extract, lemon zest, and almonds to the fruit mix.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and spices.
5. Prepare your baking tin and tie a double layer of brown paper around the outside. Edmonds suggests lining a deep 23cm (9") square pan with baking paper. I greased and lined the bottom of a 10" springform pan.
6. In a third (very large) bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and treacle/molasses.
7. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
8. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the fruit mixture.
9. Scoop the batter (which should be more like a bowl of dried fruit with a thin coat of cake batter on it) into the prepared tin.
10. Smooth the top with wet hands and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4 hours.
11. Remove from oven and let cake cool overnight.
12. Poke a few holes in the top of the cake with a skewer or toothpick.
13. Pour 2 Tbsp. of rum (or brandy or sherry) over the top of the cake and let it soak in.
14. At this point, Edmonds says to wrap the cake in tinfoil and a cloth and store in a cool place. I didn't like the idea of the tinfoil being right up against the cake, so I wrapped it in baking paper first (I just reused the paper from the outside of the tin) and then wrapped it in tinfoil followed by a tea towel.
15. Cake should be baked by late October in order for flavours to have fully developed by Christmas.

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¹ I used spiced rum because that's what I had on hand. ^Back
2 Edmonds calls for blanched (presumably whole) almonds. I used slivered both because I felt like that might allow for a more even distribution and because, as with the rum, I already had some on hand. ^Back
3 Treacle isn't really a Thing in Canada, so I tend to just substitute molasses whenever I come across a recipe that calls for treacle. They're pretty close. And I've had good results doing this so far. ^Back