Fruit and Nuts Cake

A loaf cake packed with rum-soaked dried fruits and toasted nuts, with a golden crust and a dense, moist crumb that gets better every day. Once cooled, it keeps for several weeks in a tin box. That is, if you can stop eating it long enough to find out!

Prep20

Cook1 50

Total2 40

Servings slices

DifficultyEasy

Ingredients

For the fruit and nut mixture

50 gr raisins
50 gr dates
50 gr dried figs
50 gr dried apricots
50 gr almonds
50 gr hazelnuts
50 gr walnuts
60 ml dark rum or substitute warm tea if you prefer no alcohol

For the cake

250 gr plain flour
130 gr unsalted butter softened
120 ml milk or plant based milk
2 eggs
12 gr baking powder

Equipment

Instructions

Soak the fruits

Put the raisins, chopped dates, figs and apricots in a small saucepan with the rum (or warm strong tea). Warm gently over low heat until the fruit swells and drinks up most of the liquid, then leave to cool. Reserve any liquid left in the pan.

Prep loaf pan and oven

Heat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan. Line a loaf pan with parchment, leaving an overhang on the long sides to lift the cake out later.

Coat the fruit and nuts

Toss the cooled fruit and the chopped almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts with 1 heaped tablespoon of flour taken from the 250g. This keeps them suspended instead of sinking.

Beat the butter, eggs and milk

Beat the softened butter for 2 to 3 minutes until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the milk. It may look slightly split, which is fine.

Fold in flour and fruit

Sift the remaining flour and baking powder together and fold in with a heat-resistant spatula until just combined. Don't overmix. Fold in the coated fruit and nuts with any reserved soaking liquid. The batter should be thick enough to hold the fruit; if it looks loose, fold in a little more flour.

Bake

Scrape into the pan and level the top. Bake at 180°C / 160°C fan for 65 minutes, then reduce to 160°C / 140°C fan and bake a further 45 to 55 minutes, until a skewer in the centre comes out clean. It's a hotter start than a sweet fruitcake because there's no sugar to brown gently, so tent with foil if the top colours too fast.

Cool and store

Cool completely in the pan before lifting out. Wrap in parchment and keep in a tin. It slices best after a day and keeps for weeks, improving with time.

Notes

The fruit mixture is entirely up to you. Raisins alone work well. A mix of raisins, figs, dates, and apricots gives more complexity. Use whatever you have and you like.
If you prefer not to use rum, warm tea works just as well for soaking the fruit.
Flour tip: The batter needs to be thick enough to suspend the fruit. If everything sinks to the bottom, add a little more flour and fold again.
The two-temperature baking is the key to the texture. The initial high heat gives the cake its rise and crust. The lower temperature cooks it through slowly without drying it out.
This cake is excellent sliced and eaten as it is, but also very good with a little salted butter on each slice.

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