Gillian Bell’s Chocolate Fruit Cake

Prep: 1 hr 30 min

Cook: 0 hr 40 min

Servings: 1 x 20cm cake

Print This Recipe

Chocolate adds a delightful twist to a traditional fruit cake.

Bake Gillian Bell’s delicious cake for Christmas or in the colder months.

Ingredients

200g butter (vegan:use an alternative like coconut oil)

200g soft brown muscovado sugar or organic rapadura

200ml organic eggs (approx 4 large eggs) (vegan- use equivalent quantity of egg replacement)

200g Kialla’s Organic Unbleached Soft Cake Flour

40g organic dutched cocoa powder (we love Organic Times Cocoa Powder)

600g organic mixed dried fruits (eg: raisins, sultanas and prunes or your favourite medley. You can also add more or less fruit it’s a personal choice. 2 level tsp baking powder (if you are using self-raising flour you won’t need this)

70gm organic almond meal

1 ½ tsp mixed spice

3 teaspoons black treacle

200ml alcohol (optional) or fruit juice

125g organic apple sauce or 1 medium-sized freshly grated apple

zest of 2 large organic oranges and one lemon

Method

The day before:

cut up your dried fruits with some kitchen scissors until they are all about the size of a sultana.
Put the fruit in a bowl with the juice or alcohol and toss to coat the fruit.
Leave covered (stirring from time to time so the fruit soaks evenly).
Prepare a 20cm/8″ round/square cake tin (not a sandwich tin- you’ll need something deeper).
Cut out 4 circles/squares of baking paper/parchment and a collar of paper to line the sides of the tin. Make the collar at least 2cm higher than the edge of the tin.
Also find some brown paper or thin cardboard which we’ll use to line the outside of our tins before baking.
Line the tin with 2 paper circles and the paper collar for the sides. Use a little butter or oil to help stick the paper to the sides of the tin.

On the day

Zest the oranges and lemons and grate the fresh apple if you are using it. Strain off any excess juice or alcohol from the fruits. Keep this aside to brush on your cake when it comes out of the oven.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, spices, baking powder and cocoa. Do this a few times to make sure they are evenly distributed and there are no lumps.
Cream the softened butter, sugar and treacle together in a large bowl with a wooden spoon or spatula. (For those using oil, you won’t be able to achieve a creaming effect. Just beat your ingredients so they are thoroughly combined)
Fold in the room temperature eggs, one at a time until all combined.
Add the sifted almond meal and fold in.
Fold in the sifted flour mix. You want to do this gently but thoroughly only until you can’t see any flour.
Loosen mix with some of the apple sauce. Then add the drained fruits & grated apple or fruits & remainder of apple sauce. Fold to combine.
Put mix in prepare tin. Cover top of cake with 2 paper circles. Wrap the outside of the tin in the cardboard or brown paper making sure it is higher than your tin (I’ll show you how to do this when we are baking)
Place in middle of the oven to bake for at least 1 hours. We’ll chat about what to look for to know if your cake is ready when we are baking. Bake at approx 140C follow Gillian’s tips in the video for best results.
Allow the cake to cool in tin. Decorate with dried fruits and nuts or frosted fresh fruits. Gillian showed us how to do this during the ebake we did in 2013.

Notes

Her artistry and love of baking takes her all over the world.
Find out more at her website.

This cake was the star in our inaugural eBake with Gillian Bell in 2013. You can follow along with us as we do the baking.
(the quality of much of this video is not great – technology has come a long way since then!)
Part 1: How to make the cake.
Part 2: While the cake bakes we chat with the farmers.
Part 3: Decorating the cake.

Baking cakes

Gillian Bell’s Chocolate Fruit Cake