Help! Fruit cake nightmare.....

Nix143

Well not a nightmare but deffo not a success

made a fruitcake out of the Good Housekeepings magazine today - it specified hour and half at 140 for a fan oven then another hour at 100 then skewer til it came out clean............

Except I skewered and kept skewering and TWO hours after it should have come out it was still coming out a bit greasy............

So turned it up a bit, put some foil on the top, gave it another half an hour then took it out.

Its cooling down now and is out of its greaseproof paper but I am not convinced it is cooked properly all the way through, it seems...........like it wont be spongy when it is cut. The sides are nice and cooked and so is the bottom but I think the inside of the cake is going to be a gooey mess. Now this wouldnt be a problem if it wasn't a christmas present for me 'rents.

Any advice anyone? Is it too late to stick it back in? If I cut it to see if it is slightly gooey would I be able to stick it back in now???? HELP cake making late night surfing old stylers!

mouseymousey99

when you put a skewer through the middle does it come out clean? If so, I think the cake is still cooling off and the texture changes as it gets cold.

Nix143

Poor thing looks like a pin cushion its been skewered that many times

Anyway just went and skewered it again and there are deffo patches of uncookedness in it, the skewer is coming back out a bit oily - ruddy nora

kethry

without seeing the recipe its hard to say.. you also don't say how big the cake is. However, as a point of comparison: Delia's classic christmas cake which goes in an 8 inch tin cooks for 4-5 hours at 140*C (gas mark 1). Yours is at that for an hour and a half then another hour at 100*C which is less than gas mark 1/4!! I think you can probably see why you're struggling.

the news isn't bad though... is your cake lined with greaseproof paper? is there any paper around the outside of the tin? fruit cakes and christmas cakes cook via long slow cooking at a low heat, and the way to prevent the outside burning before the inside is cooked is by wrapping the cake up. So. If your cake is lined but not wrapped, then i suggest you leave it to cool overnight, then in the morning, wrap old (clean) newspaper around it and secure with string. just stand it on some newspaper and fold the newspaper up the sides and wrap string around it. For the top, fold some newspaper over and lay lightly ontop of a piece of greaseproof paper over the cake, then reheat your oven, (to 140 i think) and pop the whole thing back in. give it an hour, skewer it... and so on. It sounds as though its very nearly done, and only needs a little bit longer.

the risk to doing this though is that the cake may be a little bit dry: to counteract this, i would suggest feeding it once its cold, either with brandy or other booze of your choice, or if you're doing a non-alcoholic cake, some orange juice.

good luck!

keth
xx

Nix143

Thanks Keth, I'll give it a go. Never baked a christmas cake before so didn't have a clue really

Editted to say - I can't read either - should have had oven on 120 not 100 - that might have something to do with it - phooey

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there Nix

Its a bit too late for me to help with the cake you have baked..hope the advice above works

I once had a similar problem, and nothing we did helped - it was almost oozing and looked so greasy...in the end we realised it was the dried fruit.... if you look on the back of the bags, a lot of fruit now has "oil" added - i assume to make it shiney and help preserve it..although heck knows why

We made exactly the same recipe again, but tipped the fruit in to a collander first and poured boiling water over and then tipped onto a clean tea-towel to dry off before making it - and it came out perfect... so now if the fruit has oil on the ingredients i always wash it first - hope it helps next time

Nix143

Well, trashed first cake after trying to re-bake it and it all going horribly wrong

So tonight tried the same recipe again, this time paying close attention to what setting the oven should be on.....

It should have finished half an hour ago.............it still looks wobbly!!!!! I think I'm in for a long night while I wait for this one to cook because it's not coming out until it's done LOL

Really disappointed because I was sure I couldn't go wrong with a Good Housekeeping recipe

pamplemousse

l used to make a very nice quick fruit cake by putting the dried fruit, sugar butter/marg and a little water in a saucepan and bringing it to the boil then simmering it for about ten minutes . leave it to cool then add the eggs flour etc. the cooking time is short but l cant remember exactly l must look for the recipe. if any one can help in the meantime. it always turned out well and onlytook a short time in the oven

Olliebeak

pamplemousse wrote: »

l used to make a very nice quick fruit cake by putting the dried fruit, sugar butter/marg and a little water in a saucepan and bringing it to the boil then simmering it for about ten minutes . leave it to cool then add the eggs flour etc. the cooking time is short but l cant remember exactly l must look for the recipe. if any one can help in the meantime. it always turned out well and onlytook a short time in the oven

I used to have a similar recipe but used tea instead of water (think it was only to 'add' to the dark colour) - but the fruit in the cake was always plump and moist to eat - no hard, dry currants. I was told by the person who gave me the recipe that it was a 'cheat's version of Bara Brith' but don't know how true that was.

Was it something like this one (scroll half way down the page):

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Food-and-Drink/Food/Question492947.html

Nix143

Well...................it got to 3am and it STILL hadn't cooked so I set it to the lowest light possible and went to bed

Up this morning and yup, you guessed it, it had dried out - however I *think* it's only the top where I didn't secure the foil properly - so i drenched it in honeyed brandy, wrapped it up and am going to peek at it properly tonight.

Question - if I have used the same recipe twice (admittedly first time I was a gas mark lower than I should have been) and both times it has taken hours longer to cook than normal do you think it's worth writing to Good Housekeeping to complain *coffs* I mean, bring it to their attention? I chose this recipe specifically because it was one that didn't take months to ripen, like a normal Christmas cake - but this is two lots of ingrediants now - and two nights spent watching the chuffing thing NOT cook :rolleyes:

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

pamplemousse wrote: »

l used to make a very nice quick fruit cake by putting the dried fruit, sugar butter/marg and a little water in a saucepan and bringing it to the boil then simmering it for about ten minutes . leave it to cool then add the eggs flour etc. the cooking time is short but l cant remember exactly l must look for the recipe. if any one can help in the meantime. it always turned out well and onlytook a short time in the oven

Mary Berry does a realy good boiled fruit cake using a can of condensed milk instead of sugar,it never goes wrong and is realy simple to put together.Her christmas cake recipe is also foolproof.No matter what the recipe I swear by an oven thermometer as most ovens are never that accurate,they only cost a few pounds and well worth it considering you won't have to throw out your baking.