Old-fashioned Delia Smith boiled fruit cake is her aunt’s fruit cake of mixed dried fruit, brown sugar and margarine, simmered before baking. You simmer the fruit for 20 minutes, then bake the cake for 2 hours in an 18cm tin, first at 170°C, then at 150°C. It cuts into about 10 slices.
This Delia Smith boiled fruit cake recipe is Mrs Gordon’s Boil and Bake Cake, from her Book of Cakes (1977), page 62. It comes from her aunt, a keen baker, and Delia recommends it as a good cake for a beginner. But for a grander celebration cake, she bakes her rich fruit cake instead.
The one step to watch is the simmering, so keep the heat fairly low and stir now and then. If you forget the pan, Delia warns that the mixture “will boil to toffee”. Once baked, the cake keeps well in an airtight tin, so it is a good one to make before a busy week. Delia’s 1992 cookery course prefers a metal cake tin to a plastic box. It also says never to keep cake and biscuits together, because the biscuits go soggy.
Delia Smith Boil and Bake Fruit Cake
A moist, keeping fruit cake from her aunt, with the fruit simmered first and the cake baked low and slow with mixed spice.
10
servings15
minutes2
hours20
minutes315
kcalIngredients
- For the cake:
350g (12oz) mixed dried fruit
110g (4oz) margarine
110g (4oz) brown sugar
150ml (¼ pint) water
225g (8oz) self-raising flour
1 level teaspoon ground mixed spice
2 medium eggs, beaten
Directions
- Simmer: Put the dried fruit, margarine, sugar and water in a saucepan, stir and bring it up to simmering point. Simmer it for 20 minutes over a fairly low heat, stirring several times so it does not stick.
- Cool: Take the pan off the heat and leave the mixture to cool for about half an hour.
- Oven: Meanwhile, heat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C, gas mark 3. Grease an 18cm (7in) cake tin and line it with baking parchment.
- Mix: Sift the flour and mixed spice into the cooled fruit, add the beaten eggs and mix everything together thoroughly.
- Bake: Pour the mixture into the tin and bake it on the centre shelf for 30 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas mark 2, and bake it for a further 1½ hours.
- Cool: Leave the cake in its tin for 10 to 15 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Her 1977 recipe asks for 2 standard eggs, and medium eggs are the nearest size today, which is my own reading.
- Cutting the 18cm cake into 10 slices is my own choice.
FAQs
Which dried fruit should I use?
A ready-mixed bag of dried fruit is all this boiled fruit cake needs, because Delia simply asks for 350g of mixed dried fruit. A bag of currants, sultanas, raisins and peel is the simplest choice, which is my own suggestion.
Can I use butter instead of margarine?
Yes, butter works well in this cake, though Delia’s 1977 recipe says any margarine will do. Her later boil-and-bake cake, the sticky date cake in Delia’s Cakes (2014), uses block butter, so I would happily swap.
Why does the fruit mixture have to cool first?
The fruit mixture cools for 30 minutes or so, so the hot syrup does not start to cook the beaten eggs. That reason is my own, because Delia simply says to let it cool a bit.
Use the half hour to heat the oven and line the tin.
Why does it bake at two temperatures?
The hotter start helps this boiled fruit cake rise and set, and the gentler heat cooks the middle without burning the outside, in my view. Delia bakes it at 170°C for 30 minutes, then lowers the heat to 150°C for the long finish.
If the top browns too fast, her Complete Cookery Course has the fix. Check the cake three-quarters of the way through, and cover it with a double circle of greaseproof paper with a 50p-sized hole in the middle.
Why did the fruit sink to the bottom?
Sunken fruit usually means the cake mixture was too wet to hold it, according to Delia’s cake-making notes from 1992. Fruit cakes need plenty of flour, so measure the 150ml of water exactly and keep the full 225g of flour.
Simmering for the whole 20 minutes also matters, because it plumps the fruit and drives off some of the water, which is my own view.
