Fruit Pound Cake

I realise that not many Asian appreciate fruit cake, I mean those butter cake filled with plenty of dried fruits that soaked with liqour for certain of time. However, my parent and siblings like this kind of cake and ask for more liqour to be added in their fruit cake. I only do it for them once a year as the cake need times to sit in the freezer and to be fed with liqour until mature enough to serve.

Japanese style of light fruit pound cake

This fruit pound cake wasn't mature enough as I did it in a rush for a party. The dried fruit was only soaked for a week and I didn't have chance to feed them more liqour at all. So this fruit cake had just a mild taste of rum. 

Not a traditional fruit cake bake with dark brown sugar but a light colour to present a colourful fruit cake

The method of making this fruit cake also different from my previous traditional baked fruit cake. It is a Japanese style of making pound cake which added with dried fruits. If you get into deeper study of pound cake making, the cake wasn't made from the method of separate egg whites and yolks but Japanese recipe did. They use to beat the butter, sugar, egg yolks then fold in the white meringue and flour alternatelly because they are much appreciate the light texture of pound cake just quite similar to the recipe I baked previously like Lemon Pound Cake and Marble Pound Cake.

This fruity pound cake is well accepted and  majority enjoyed in the party. Very glad they appreciate the texture.  My hubby wasn't a fruit cake person but he likes it this way.

a better way of baking fruit cake to serve in an Asian party

Recipe for pound cake pan 18 x 8 x 6.5cm

100g plain flour

30g ground almond

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

120g salted butter

35g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

2 lemon zest

2 tbsp homemade lemon juice

2 egg whites

40g caster sugar

120g mixed dried fruits (dried cranberries , dried apricot,  sultanas) soak with liqour either brandy, rums or cointreau for a week  or up to a year. Before use, drain and dry the dried fruits on a sieve and clean towel. Add a big handful of plain flour to coat the dried fruits and sieve away the access flour.

Grease and line the pound cake pan with baking paper. Shift the flour, baking powder and ground almond.

In a clean bow, beat the butter then gradually add in the caster sugar until the sugar dissolved into the butter and the mixture become fluffy and pale in color. 

Mix in the egg yolk one at a time and beat until just combine. Then  mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice until just combined.

In another clean bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of sugar until the bubbles appear then add 1/3 of the sugar. Gradually beat in the rest of the sugar until the egg whites become stiff peak foam. Gently fold in half the egg whites into the butter mixture, don't have to mix too much. Then mix in half of the flour ingredients and combine everything. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites then add the remaining flour ingredients then the dried fruits until just combined. 

Fill the cake pan with the batter. 

Bake in a 180C preheated oven for 15 minutes.  When the batter set and it start to expand, open the oven door and use a knife to cut a line at the center of the batter, lower down the temperature to 170C   continue to bake for 40 minutes or until and skewer insert into the cake and come out clean. Be careful not to over bake the cake as you dont want a hard dry cake. 

Let it cool down on a wire rack and keep in an airtight container either at room temperature  or in the fridge. 

For a mature taste of liqour, poke holes on the cake with a skewer, brush some liqour from the top then cling wrap the cake then another layer of aluminium foil. Place in the freezer. Take it out twice a month to feed some liqour on the cake until mature enough for your taste bud.