Ingredients
155g SR flour
155g plain flour
250g unsalted butter
230g dark brown sugar
160g chopped dried dates
210g chopped sultanas
210g raisins, chopped
170ml green ginger wine
80ml apple juice
110g glacé ginger, chopped
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp bicarb. soda
2 eggs lightly beaten
60ml green ginger wine extra
Procedure
Sift the flours into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.
Combine the butter in a large saucepan with the sugar, fruit, green ginger wine, apple juice and both glacé and ground ginger. Stir over low heat until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from the heat, stir in the bicarb and set aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20cm square or 23cm round cake tin.
Mix half the egg at a time into the fruit then add the mixture to the well in the bowl of flour and stir until just combined—don’t overmix*. Spoon into the tin, tap the tin ln the bench to remove air bubbles and smooth the surface with wet fingers.
Wrap newspaper¶ around the outside of the tin and sit the tin on several layers of newspaper on a baking tin. Bake for 90–110 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Drizzle the hot cake with the extra green ginger wine. Cool in the tin, covered with a clean cloth then store in an airtight tin or plastic wrap for up to 2 months.
* This cake rises based on the rising agent in the SR flour, once that is used up it won’t rise any more. The rising agent starts as soon as the wet ingredients are added to the flours.
¶ I use brown paper. Nice and thick. I also don’t get any physical newspaper and some shops give you nice thick brown paper bags to put your shopping in, score! If you don’t wrap the tin the outside of the cake will be overcooked. May need to cover the top of the cake half way through if it is looking well brown.
Bake