EIRA'S CARDIGANSHIRE BOILED PINEAPPLE CAKE
1/4 lb (125g) butter
1 lb (500g) mixed fruit (I use the Tesco mix with apricots and cranberries in)
1 cup crushed pineapple
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs
1 cup (7 oz/200g) plain flour
1cup (6 oz) sugar
(I normally double these amounts and make two at a time, one to freeze or gift. That way you don't have half a tin of crushed pineapple hanging around in the fridge.)
Place butter, pineapple, sugar and fruit in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to melt over a low heat. Add Bicarb and spices and mix well. Bring to boil and boil for 3 minutes. Cool. Add lightly beaten eggs and fold in sieved flour. Cook in over 140 deg. C (275 deg F/Gas mark 1) for 1 1/3 hours, then at 150 deg. for 1 1/2 hours. (I got away with 1 1/2 hours at 140 yesterday, so experiment). I prodded it with my trusty BBQ skewer to check and see if the cake was firm, and yes it was.)
Well, I got the grocery shop done yesterday morning as I needed to leave the week free for outings as my friend Gay is here from Dorset. We started off as penpals over 50 years ago and used to walk in the Purbecks and record wild flowers, butterflies, moths and pubs!!
In the afternoon I baked two cakes (as above), then thought I would be short on time the rest of the week so made the (Exploding!) Mars Bar Muffins for next-door's kids (as a thankyou for changing my filter yet again as the mud coming from the blocked pipe was something else. Looking at it now, it needs doing again. They are meant to be changed every 3 mths or so, not 3 weeks!) The Exploding bit in the title is down to putting too much Mars Bar in -anything near the surface of the muffin explodes all over the cases/baking tin. I was tired by then but still had the tea to make. Corned Beef Pasties for Keith and the freezer. I used cheese pastry, chunks of tinned corned beef, and diced cooked carrot and potato. The remainder of the latter are in bags in the freezer for when I need them. By then all I wanted to do was sit down, but before I could wash up yet more baking things, I had to make room in the rack and had to dry a huge pile first. Ah well.
I even did my first bit of Christmas shopping yesterday. Nothing like being organized is there? It was something domestic for Tam (I asked her what she needed).
My local chap came and cut the grass for me and said about the hedge. Like me, he puts nature first so will let the shrub which is currently flowering do so before he tackles it. The insects love it and I even have Hornets along that stretch of hedge!
I have just started re-reading Cats in the Belfry by Doreen Tovey. Nice light reading and all I can say is I'm glad I have half-Siamese kitten-cats and not fully Siamese. She wrote books about their donkeys too, but I cannot read them as they so clearly knew diddly-squat about donkeys or even how to put a headcollar on and I find them too annoying to read.
I should have done my daily walk when I came down at 5 a.m. this morning as it is now raining. Ah well, I will just have to get wet. I have an after-tea drive to collect Gay from Llanidloes as her coach doesn't get in until 7.15 p.m. Going home I will be out early as I think it gets in Llani about 9.30 a.m.
If I go quiet this week, it's because we are busy, so don't worry.
That boiled fruit cake sounds lovely. But ... I'm wondering if you've doubled some of these ingredients, but not all of them. You've given us a whole tin of the pineapple, but 4oz of butter, and only 1 cup of flour. I'd like to try it, but I'll wait until you confirm there hasn't been an "Oops!" I hope you enjoy your day out.
ReplyDeleteThe recipe says one cup of crushed pineapple, which works out at half a tin. So one tin makes 2 cakes. Those are the ingredients for one cake.
DeleteThank you. I "mis-thought" and expected a tin would be about 1 cup of pineapple. I'll try it. I love the idea of one in the freezer. Thank you
DeleteThank you for sorting me out on the size of the can of crushed pineapple. I looked in our supermarket today and we now can but cans that are half size, and they'd contain a cupful. I'll try that. Therefore I don't need to always make two cakes. I hope you're having a great time with your friend. Todays jaunt looked very interesting.
DeleteThank you for the recipe, and enjoy your week.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a chance to make it. I will enjoy the week - today has been totally OTT due to a 5 hr power cut when I was in the middle of making bread!
DeleteA woman’s work is never done, as they say! The recipe looks great and similar to the Bara Brith that I love to bake…apart from the pineapple.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if you have a very sensible gardener! Too many don't consider nature and I think that’s very sad…but local councils are the worst!
I hope that you have a good time with your long time friend! I once had a pen friend, when I was about ten years old, and I often wonder where she is and what she’s doing. Sal 😁
You're not kidding, ref. a woman's work and all that. This is a sort of enriched Bara Brith except you don't soak the fruit in tea overnight.
DeleteMy gardener's a lovely chap and considers nature. He left the Primroses uncut all summer so there would be more next year :)
I'm sure Gay and I will have a pleasant few days, just hoping it doesn't rain all the time as we have outdoor activities planned.
I haven't done any baking in months, I just. don't have the hwyl for it. I wonder how I'd get on making your cake because it looks and sounds absolutely delicious. Besides, I have a tin of crushed pineapple lurking in the cabinet I don't know why I bought it. I don't even like the stuff not crushed.
ReplyDeleteI think I shall gloss over the fact that you used the C word..
You have to be in the mood that's for sure. I hardly baked at all last year. You won't really taste the crushed pineapple in this, it just makes it a nice moist cake.
DeleteSorry about the C word - someone had to be first!
That cake looks tasty, is it right that you have to refrigerate cakes with pineapple in?
ReplyDeleteThat would be my dream greenhouse too, ours is getting very dilapidated!
Have a good time with your friend from Dorset x
Alison in Wales x
I suppose you should, but I don't think I have in the past. I only have the green polytunnel, which isn't ideal for growing seedlings on.
DeleteIt is infuriating when you are reading a book that's going into great detail about something and you know from experience that they are very wrong isn't it. In a similar vein I was watching a YouTube video with a well known influencer waxing lyrical over her new vegetable patch and all the things left behind by the previous home owner. She was giving tips on the growing season ahead and all their plans for the garden, but when she told us that the weed was rhubarb and that she must pull out that messy weed ... the actual rhubarb ... I lost the will to leave a comment or continue watching.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a lovely time with your friend Gay and that the weather improves for her time with you.
Oh gosh - fancy not recognizing Rhubarb when she saw it. Not such a good influencer then!
ReplyDeleteWet today but meant to be improving.
Hope you’re having a lovely time with your friend from Dorset. Today I have made apple cake (Monty Don’s recipe which is very good, except no quinces available yet) with windfalls picked up from outside the white cottage at the top of the bridleway that I can see from our house. I don’t know the current owners (they have a gym in their garage!) but I did know Peggy who died recently aged 101 and who lived there most of her adult life. Peggy loved wildflowers and would make her dearest friends birthday cards from flowers she had collected and pressed. I am sure Peggy planted the apple tree. Thankfully we are back on an even keel. Our Parkinson’s nurse phoned S on Monday morning and has increased his Sinemet from 4 tabs to 5 daily, the last to be taken just before bed to help with the restless legs. We we both so tired yesterday but I managed to keep going with yoga first thing, shopping in the farm shop on the way home, a short walk with S (including picking up the windfalls) and after lunch driving S into Chichester for a hospital appointment about his hernia. We saw a professor no less who was so nice and has put S on his list for a hernia repair hopefully within the next four months. T had arrived home while we were out and it was so nice to all sit outside for tea, homemade scones and blackberry jelly and catch up. Finally I had bookgroup in Petworth and my good friend from the village drove so I was able to have a much needed glass of wine. We were discussing The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn which most of us enjoyed vey much. The paperback edition was published last week so I wonder if you and Gail might share a copy as it is set mainly on the Dorset coast. We both slept last night (after three sleepless nights I was beyond tired) and this morning we went swimming, I made the cake after lunch and we spent the afternoon reading on the sofa (The Great Passion by James Runcie about Bach - so far excellent) and listening to the radio and feeling autumnal wearing woolly jumpers and socks and wrapped in crochet blankets made by my mum. Tonight’s Prom is the National Orchestra of Wales - not sure of the programme but it is sublime music. I am so thankful S responds to the Sinemet - today has been good because of that drug therapy. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteSorry - Gay not Gail! Gail is the name of my lovely yoga teacher who brought runner beans and eggs to the class on Monday! Sarah x
ReplyDeletei see you mention sugar in the method but i cant see it in the ingredients, i bet its there and i just dont see it 😁 love your blog by the way x x
ReplyDeleteOh my those cakes look really good and those muffins sound very interesting.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.