Boiled Fruit Cake

I adore fruit cake and it is one of the cakes that I wanted either to bake my own or buy from the store during the Christmas holidays.  As you know, I skipped any recipe that seem too troublesome to make for example too many different steps that ended out with lots of dishes to wash.

I saw this Boiled Fruit Cake recipe at JoyofBaking and decided to read through the recipe and it was surprisingly fairly easy with minimal dishes to wash.  I only need to clean the saucepan and since I already have all the ingredients at home, I was eager to try it out.  It was named Boiled Fruit Cake because half of the ingredients were boiled on the stove and mixing in with the rest of the ingredients.  I modified the recipe by adding Brandy.  The only downside of this was it tasted better after three days and longer.  I read that if wrap nicely, it can be kept for up to six months.

My verdict is I find this fruit cake a bit dry, I would prefer it to be more moist.  So, the next time I make this, I would substitute the water with milk.  Hopefully then it will make this fruit cake better.  

I adapted this recipe from Joy of Baking with slight modification.

Ingredients:

(A)

• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 cup hot water minus 2 Tbsp.
• 2 Tbsp. Brandy
• 1/4 cup or 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup raisins

(B)

• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

(C)

• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup candied pineapple

Method:

1.  Spray a nonstick buttery spray in a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.  Lined the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 350'F.

2.  In a large saucepan, over medium heat, bring to a boil (A).  Boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat and let it cool until lukewarm.  Stir into this mixture (B) in order listed.  Lastly add in (C) and stir to mix well.

3.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Remove from oven and let it sit in the pan for 5 minutes.  Turn over the cake and let it cool completely on a wire rack.

4.  Wrap with foil and store, if possible keep it at least after three days before serving.  It can be frozen as well.