Cranberry & Orange Fruit Cake

Hello Friends,
It doesn't feel at all like November with this mild weather, but the fact is that Christmas is just over 5 weeks away & I am busy both planning my festive baking & finishing off home-made gifts.

Last year, I baked a cake for my Dad as a Christmas gift. Neither he nor Mum bake, so I thought a nice fruit cake would be something he could enjoy in January & as I love baking, it seemed a good idea. He loved the cake. I mentioned to him last month that I might cast around for another recipe for a good cake to bake him for this Christmas, & he said, "Yes, or even that same one again". I can take a hint! It was apparently a 'really tasty' cake, almost turning him into a food critic for a brief moment as he explained how all the flavours of the key ingredients really 'came through' & it was both 'moist' but 'chewy', & actually seemed to 'get better' as it dwindled down to the last slice. 

This paragon of a cake (in Dad's eyes, at least!) was Spiced Cranberry & Orange Fruit Cake, a recipe I found a year or two ago in a magazine. 

I tried to find a link to this recipe, which was published in an old copy of Women's Weekly magazine, but their online archived version is different, so I'm sharing the recipe I used below:

Spiced Cranberry & Orange Cake

250g butter - needs to be soft
250g light muscovado sugar
4 eggs
300g plain flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
1kg dried mixed fruit
200g dried cranberries
zest of 2 oranges
4 tbsp Cointreau
(see note about decorating)
You'll also need a 20cm round cake tin, which you have lined with baking parchment (I double-line mine).

Pre-heat the oven to Gas 2.
Put the softened butter, sugar & eggs in a bowl. Sieve in the flour & cinnamon. Beat until smooth. Add the dried fruit, cranberries & orange zest & stir well to combine. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin & smooth the surface. Bake for around 3 hours or until cake passes the 'clean skewer' test. If it looks as though it's going to get too dark, pop a square of baking parchment over the top (Just twist the corners first - think 'knotted hanky' on balding seaside heads!) If you also surround your tin with newspaper, which I do, the top of your cake should be protected (see below). Leave the cake to cool slightly for about 15 mins, then carefully sprinkle the Cointreau over the top. Stand tin on a wire rack & leave it to get completely cold before turning out. Wrap it in a new sheet of baking parchment, then a tight layer of foil, where it will keep for 3 months.


Cakes which contain a lot of dried fruit can be prone to 'catching' on top. This can be avoided by tying a collar of 3 or 4 sheets of newspaper around the outside of the tin before it goes in the oven. The newspaper needs to stand at least 10cm above the top of the tin. Make sure you use cotton or oven-proof string so that it doesn't melt. (Remember Bridget Jones & the bright blue soup!)

If you haven't tried a newspaper collar before, this is how it should look, & yes, you can see I've used George Osborne on mine. The temptation of trussing up that particular individual with string before delivering a long slow roasting was just too much to resist.

This cake is suitable for a Christmas or celebration cake. If you wish to decorate it, just do the marzipan & icing thing as usual.

I just put some whole blanched almonds on mine, as it's intended to be eaten in January & people are often ready for less-rich foods by then. I know I certainly am, especially if it's been Piglet Central here at 'Hagstones'.

I know some people are put off baking fruit cakes because of the cost of the ingredients. They can be expensive, depending on the recipe. I kept costs down by using 'Like brands, only better' baking ingredients, which are generally excellent. I also substituted the Cointreau with an own-brand version & used oranges from our local market, which has excellent produce at good prices. Only the zest is required, so the oranges can still be eaten. Dried cranberries can be quite expensive. My tip for buying these is to look in the baking aisle with the dried fruit first, as I found these to be half the price of (probably identical) bags of dried cranberries in the 'healthy snacks' section. I wouldn't suggest using baking spread instead of butter because this cake mixture is noticeably very buttery-tasting (well, a girl's got to lick the bowl......) & I think it'd be a shame to lose this. I also bought whole almonds with skins on & blanched them myself rather than pay extra for someone else to have done this very simple task for me.
The only sad thing about this cake? I've never tried a piece! Am tempted, but it seems a bit cheeky to gift-wrap a home-baked cake with a slice missing. I do have some scruples where cake is concerned!

So there we are - Spiced Cranberry & Orange Fruit Cake. Smells fab in the oven, too. So festive. 

It sounds as though we may actually see a bit of snow over the weekend. I always prefer more seasonal temperatures myself, but if it does turn colder, I can guarantee we will be seeing a lot of this.

Albert Whiskers has well & truly done with being a stray street cat. It's home comforts all the way these days, & why not?
Have a good week, all,
C x

Slow cookers - Is it worth buying one?

Hi Friends,
Yes! Well, I think so, anyway.
Years ago, someone offered to sell me their ancient slow cooker. It was an odd looking thing from the 1970s. As a child, I'd probably have used it as a Sindy swimming pool. I thought it looked like somewhere good ingredients would go to die & declined to part with my cash. I didn't give slow cookers another thought until their recent resurgence when newer models & enticing cookbooks started to appear. I started to think a slow cooker could be useful, but I wanted one I could take straight to the table. Who wants an extra pot to wash?

So I bought this one. It's a 'Crock-pot'. It's made from pottery, tough enough to go on the hob for browning meat, etc, before transferring to its heated base which simply plugs into the mains, where I'm told it uses roughly the same amount of energy as a light-bulb. 
I've been experimenting for 3 or 4 years now, so what have I learned about slow cookers?

1. Liquid doesn't evaporate as it would in conventional cooking, so I use a LOT less liquid.
2. Browning ingredients such as onions, celery, meat, etc, (only if you have time) will add more flavour, just as it would in conventional cooking.
3. Use plenty of flavourings. The cooking time will be much longer, so initial flavouring needs to be more robust.
4. If cooking a joint with a fair bit of fat on it, my personal choice is to trim it first. This fat won't crisp up & taste as it would in the oven, so really is just calories & I'd rather get rid of it.

A criticism I've heard of slow cookers is that everything is watery & 'tastes the same'. I'm wondering if this is a hangover from the 1970s wave of slow cooking because it hasn't been my experience at all. However, if you are basically going to throw some meat in with an onion & bucket- load of water, that is exactly what will happen. I think people sometimes hear 'Slow Cooker' & think 'Stew'. They are useful for stews, especially this time of year & into the coldest months. I regularly make a chunky beef & vegetable stew:

The ingredients go in like this - it couldn't be simpler - & 8 hours later, it has simmered itself into this.......

The gravy is usually pretty much the right consistency, but if you've used a little too much water, it can easily be thickened up in the time-honoured way adding a couple of teaspoons of cornflour mixed with a tiny bit of the liquid, replacing the lid & simmering for an extra 10 mins or so.

A bubbling hot cauldron of stew is great to come home to on a cold day, but I'm finding my slow cooker is hugely more versatile than that. So far, I've made black bean chilli, pulled pork, lamb rogan josh, chicken casserole, bombay potatoes, beef stroganoff, smoky ham hock with Boston baked beans, savoury mince, veggie bulgur wheat chilli, steak & kidney, sweet & sour chicken, as well as all manner of stews, soups & stocks. I'm looking forward to trying mojo pork & Mexican chicken too. Slow cookers are great for the traditional cheaper cuts of meat - ham hocks, shanks, neck of lamb, ox-cheek, oxtail, brisket, etc. A pork shoulder will emerge so tender it only needs to be helped apart with a spoon before it's piled into warm cobs with a dollop of sharp apple sauce. There's no messing about with cooking times. Slow cooker recipes are pretty much based on 4 hours on 'high' or 8 hours on 'low'. Still not ready to eat? Most have a 'Keep warm' setting until you are.

There are plenty of good slow cooker recipe books available. It's worth borrowing a selection from the library to get a feel for how versatile slow cookers can be. I can recommend Slow Cooker - Throw it in & let it simmer for a truly fab spicy pulled pork recipe (other retailers are available, especially your local bookshop & not forgetting the library service - Use them or loose them!) Just check that any book you are buying is actually written for slow cookers. There are some lovely slow cooking titles around which are for slow conventional cooking in the oven, so the techniques will be different.

So there you are! Is it worth buying a slow cooker? For me, the answer has been 'yes'. If you have a cat, you may well find a lot of 'Bisto-cat' activity going on as s/he detects all the fragrant loveliness wafting through the house on slow cooker days. Albert Whiskers takes up a very hopeful position on the kitchen rug & is always most disappointed to discover that the contents are not for him & he is expected to eat fishy sludge again. It is, after all, a desperately hard life being Albert Whiskers.

Until next time,
C x