Cuisine – A very good fruit cake

Baking is one of the skills that New Zealanders are very good at. Lots of us grew up with cake tins filled with goodies that our Mums and Grandmas lovingly baked for us every week. I have fond memories of lovely crunchy biscuits, delicious gooey slices and all manner of cakes that we could munch on in our lunch box or fill those hollow tummies when we returned from school each day.

These days, with the rush to drop off the kids before heading to work and then coming home in the evening dog-tired, there’s not quite the same enthusiasm for weekly baking. Conveniently packaged nut and muesli bars and all manner of baked treats line the shelves of the supermarket to tempt us and fill the breach. But we shouldn’t lose those skills, and the good old Edmonds cookbook remains a constant on the best-selling book lists today.

Weekends are for baking and it’s important that we seek recipes that produce cakes, slices and biscuits that are good “keepers” to take us through the week. Everyone should try to master one or two cakes for their own baking repertoire, as there’s nothing that brings as much joy as a delicious moist cake.

Cakes make great gifts for neighbours and friends in times of stress, and a lovely celebratory cake is essential for birthdays and special occasions.

This week’s cake recipe is an oldie but a goodie. Like many foodie families, we are rich in traditions in our household, and the fragile treasured baking books of my mother and grandmother still occupy their place on my shelves. But of all the cakes, including my Mum’s chocolate cake, this sultana cake is probably the most cherished. Dulcie was my mother-in-law, and she would visit us every Friday, arriving by train laden with flowers from her garden, some new knitting or sewing for our kids, and always an apple pie or this flavoursome sultana cake for the family.

It’s a great recipe and after she passed away my own mother rose to the occasion, copied the recipe and continued to bake Dulcie’s Sultana Cake for us. We were spoiled. It’s a buttery cake that will keep in an airtight tin for up to a week, and is filled with the aroma and flavours of orange, lemon and almond. It needs no icing or fancying up as it’s just perfect on its own.

I acquired a silicone cake tin many years ago (I have silicone muffin pans, too) and absolutely love them as they do away with the need to butter and line with baking paper and the cakes and muffins turn out cleanly and easily every single time. Most good kitchenware stores carry them or you can find them for purchase online. I cannot recommend this equipment highly enough. It might even change your reluctance to bake!

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Nana Dulcie’s Sultana Cake

400g sultanas
180g butter
180g sugar
2 eggs
1 lemon, finely grated zest only
1 orange, finely grated zest only
1tsp pure vanilla essence
1 tsp almond essence
240g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup warm water

Preheat the oven to 150°C.

Prepare a square or round 20cm cake tin by lining with two layers of baking paper in the bottom and the sides, or use a 20cm silicone cake tin (more information in the accompanying story).

Put the sultanas in a saucepan, adding just enough water to cover them well, bring to the boil and simmer the sultanas for 10 minutes. Allow the fruit to cool then drain well in a sieve. Most of the liquid should have been absorbed.

Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time and continue beating.

Fold in the grated zest of the orange and lemon with the vanilla and almond essences. Add the sifted flour and baking powder with the warm water and the drained sultanas and mix with a metal spoon until combined.

Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for one hour. Test with a skewer, ensuring it is cooked in the centre by seeing that it comes out clean, then remove from the oven. Allow the cake to cool in the tin before turning out. This cake will keep for a week or two in an airtight tin.
To serve, cut into small squares.