Friday, 22 July 2011

Upside Down Sultana Cake - very easy

Dont worry about the fruit sinking in your fruitcake anymore!  
place it first in the base of your dish!



Usually when I make baked apples, I put lots of sultanas in the bottom of the dish, cover with some water, adding sugar and a knob of butter to the cored (and scored) apples.  I sometimes have sultanas leftover - - so I decided to put them (drained), in the base of my cake dish, pour over a simple cake batter - and ............ it worked really well!  

You can turn this cake upside down (so you have the sultanas on top - of course), eating it hot as a pud with cream, or just as a regular cold cake  ..... it's really delicious.  (You could also do this with any other tinned (and drained) fruit.)

If you want to cook your sultanas separately: place a quantity of sultanas (or sultanas and raisins) in the base of a buttered dish, add sugar to taste and a knob of butter, and enough water to cover.  Bake until nicely softened and slightly syrupy.  

IDEAS: 
Drain off the syrup and just use the fruit,
Use the syrup when making fresh fruit salad or
Just have the sultanas/raisins with the syrup and cream (this is delicious.).  The syrup stores well in a screwtop jar, in the fridge.

Cake Batter Ingredients:
2 eggs
175g (6ozs) sugar (including a little soft brown sugar if you have it)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
85g. (3.1/2 ozs.) melted butter
75ml. milk
125g (4.1/2 ozs) plain flour + 2.1/4 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. each of ground cinnamon and ginger

Place your sultanas in the base of a buttered baking dish.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy
Add the melted butter and milk - stir gently together.
Sift in the dry ingredients.
Stir together gently and pour the batter over the fruit.

Bake for 30 - 45 mins at approx. 180/190 deg.C (depending on your oven) - until the cake is firm on the top.


If it gets brown too quickly, just place a sheet of tinfoil gently over the top.
Test with a skewer to see if cake is cooked through.
Eat! (or leave to cool).
The fruit is lovely and slightly sticky.
The batter is also very nice as a plain sponge cake.
(Very versatile recipe!)

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