Stained Glass Cake

JustJanS's Note:

This beautiful fruit cake looks best cut into thin slices to show off the colours of the fruits and nuts. This is great to serve at Christmas time- or any time with coffee and port after dinner! An Australian cup is 250mls and a tablespoon contains 4 teaspoons. Thanks to the reviewer who pointed out my typo in the intro :-)

• Total Time: 1 hrs 50 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 1 cake

• 250 g dessert dates, stoned
• 125 g glace pineapple
• 125 g glace apricot
• 125 g glace cherries
• 125 g glace green cherries
• 125 g whole blanched almonds
• 250 g shelled brazil nuts
• 125 g prunes, stoned and halved
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 tablespoons rum (40ml)
• 90 g butter
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch salt

Directions:

1. Chop the pineapple and apricots into fairly large pieces, and leave the remaining fruit and nuts whole.
2. Mix all these fruits and nuts together, then reserve a half cup of them for the topping.
3. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, then add the sugar, vanilla essence, rum and softened butter.
4. Continue beating until well blended.
5. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt and add with the fruit and nuts, mix thoroughly.
6. Grease a 20cm ring tin and line the base.
7. Spoon mixture evenly into the tin, arrange the reserved fruit and nuts over the top, pressing down gently.
8. Bake in a slow oven for about 1 1/2 hours or until cake is firm to touch.
9. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin before turning out.
10. Store in an airtight container wrapped in foil.
11. To serve, cut into very thin slices with a very sharp knife-the thin slices show off the beautiful colours of the fruits.

Reviews

[JoyfulCook]

This is the second year I have made this Cake, I noted in another review the lady said she could not cut it properly as it crumbled, the secret as Jan says is to pack it in the baking dish well, and I mean really well, after all its pure nuts and glace fruit with just enough cake mix to hold it all together.

Its a truly delicious cake and you HAVE to use a serrated read knife to cut this successfully because its so packed with fruit. Well worth every cent, thanks so much Jan

[oatsfudge]

Yum-but just a quick note- An Australian cup is not 50mls-it is 250 mls

[cookingpompom]

This cake is delicious and looks lovely when cooked, a major problem though....it does not slice. Turns into a crumbly mess, I followed the recipe excatly, perhaps it needs more "cake" mixture to hold it better together. A real shame as the ingredients are so expensive, the cake cost me over $20 to make.