Hairy Bikers Boiled Fruit Cake Recipe

Boiling the fruit with butter, sugar and stout is what makes this Hairy Bikers boiled fruit cake different from a creamed one. And 700g of dried fruit goes in, so it cuts into 10 slices at 550 calories each. Both Go West and Ultimate Comfort Food carry it, and the whole thing runs 95 minutes.

Cocoa is the surprise in the tin, and they write that it “works well with the slight bitterness of the stout”. So 25g goes in with the flour, which is why the crumb comes out dark rather than golden.

A double layer of parchment tied round the outside of the tin is what stops the edges burning over 75 minutes. And all that dried fruit carries a lot of sugar, so the outside catches long before the middle sets.

Hairy Bikers Boiled Fruit Cake Recipe

Author: Alex Saidani Cooking Method:Baking Cuisine:British Courses:Dessert

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 25 minutesCook time:1 hour 10 minutesRest time: minutesTotal time:1 hour 35 minutesServings:10 servingsCalories:550 kcal Best Season:Summer

Description

Butter, dark sugar and stout melt together in a pan, then the dried fruit goes in and the lot comes to the boil. Once cooled, eggs and the cocoa flour mixture fold through. Then it bakes low and slow, and improves for days in a tin.

Ingredients

• 200g butter, diced, plus extra for greasing
• 250g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 200g dark brown soft sugar
• 200ml stout
• 700g dried fruit (glacé cherries, raisins, chopped prunes, finely chopped candied orange peel)
• zest of 1 orange
• 3 eggs, beaten

Instructions

1. Line the tin: heat the oven to 160C, fan 140C, gas 3, then butter a deep 20cm cake tin and line it with baking parchment. Then tie a double layer of parchment around the outside, because that collar is what protects the edges.
2. Mix the dry: whisk 250g plain flour, 25g cocoa powder, 2 tsp mixed spice and 2 tsp baking powder in a bowl. Add a generous pinch of salt and set it aside.
3. Melt the base: put 200g diced butter, 200g dark brown soft sugar and 200ml stout in a large saucepan over a gentle heat. Then stir it regularly until the butter and sugar have melted. And do not leave the stout out, because 200ml of liquid is what lets the fruit soften in the pan.
4. Boil the fruit: add 700g of dried fruit and the zest of an orange, then bring the pan to the boil. Once it boils, take it straight off the heat and leave it to cool a little.
5. Bring it together: beat in 3 eggs, then fold in the dry ingredients. And the boiled method is what makes this an easy fruit cake, since nothing needs creaming or beating until fluffy.
6. Bake it low: scrape the mixture into the tin and bake for one hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Then check it with a skewer, which should come out clean once the cake has shrunk slightly from the sides.
7. Wrap and wait: cool it in the tin, then wrap it well in parchment or foil and store it in an airtight tin. And a thermometer reading 98C in the centre is the surest test with a cake this dense.

FAQs

Why do other sites show a different boiled fruit cake?

Because the version doing the rounds came from a viewer, not from Si and Dave. And Mums Know Best ran a recipe swap tent, where BBC still hosts that submission credited to Helen Speller-Cain. So this stout one is the boiled fruit cake Si and Dave actually wrote, which is why it is the one here.

Which stout should I use, and can I swap it?

Guinness works, and the book names their West Indies Porter while BBC Food just says Irish stout or porter. So any dark bottle from a UK supermarket does the job, though avoid anything hoppy because it turns bitter. And condensed milk is the swap people ask about, but that changes the sugar and the liquid at once, making it a different cake.

Why does it need to sit for days before cutting?

Because they say the texture improves enormously, and that is written into the recipe rather than added by me. So wrap it in parchment or foil, put it in an airtight tin, and give it at least two days. And their parkin behaves the same way, since both cakes need time for the fruit and spice to settle.

What dried fruit goes in, and can I change it?

They specify 700g as a mix of glacé cherries, raisins, chopped prunes and finely chopped candied orange peel. So the 700g total is what matters, because that is the ratio the flour and egg are built around. And dates are not on their list, though their Dundee cake shows how differently the same authors treat a fruit mix.

Is this a Christmas cake?

Not quite, and the difference is the boiling rather than the richness. Because a rich Christmas cake soaks its fruit in spirits for weeks, while this boils it in stout in ten minutes. So BBC Good Food and most Christmas cake recipes involve weeks of feeding, which this one skips entirely.