Birthdays!!

We celebrated our first princess Rhulani Kundainashe's birthday on the 14 of June. One thing that I have experienced as a mother is that children appreciate the effort put in making their day special not the size of the budget. For our family birthday is highly favoured and celebrated in the most simple, easy and less costly way but the out pouring of love is engraved in the way we prepare for it. As a mum I have always taken the initiative to make every member know that their birthday means a lot to the family. Below is the cake that we joined hands to make and bring the beauty that we wanted the girl to feel on her day. Really she did, she stood there watching it as if she didn’t want it cut. The 6 year old said, “You guys it’s so beautiful”.

Light Fruit Cake

This recipe makes one large 35cm square by 12cm deep cake. Line tin with 3 layers of greaseproof paper and grease top layer, or line with a double layer of heavy- duty foil, which does not require greasing.

Ingredients

1Kg Cake mix

500 g butter

9 eggs

1ml salt

500g brown sugar

125ml of brandy

30ml mixed spice

125g cherries, chopped

100g slivered almonds

Grated rind of 1 lemon

10ml cocoa or coffee essence

625g cake flour

5ml grated nutmeg

 7.5ml Royal baking powder

Method

Preheat oven to 150⁰ C / 300⁰ F. Wash fruits well, place in a bowl with nuts and pour brandy over. Mix well.  Cream butter and sugar; add eggs 2 at a time, beating well. Add cocoa, and then add prepared fruits. Sift dry ingredients and add to fruit mixture, mixing well. Pour mixture into a prepared tin. Bake for 3-3.5 hours, reducing temperature to 140⁰ C / 275⁰ F after 1 hour. Leave in tin until cold. Retain paper lining until ready to ice cake. You can feed it with brandy once before covering with Marzipan. Cover top of cake with Marzipan (almond paste) over night before icing with icing. This cake can be made a day before the function so there is no need for much brandy to preserve.