From start to finish, this simple 2 hour slow cooker boiled fruit cake uses easy ingredients and uses a microwave and 3.5 litre slow cooker! It also costs less than £1 to make! Using a boiled fruit cake recipe, where ingredients are first boiled in a saucepan, that stage of the process is replaced by microwaving the initial ingredients, speeding up the prep time and of course, it needs no hob or saucepan! It will make a cake in a takeaway container, so plenty enough for several days of cake eating.
My mum used to often bake boiled fruit cakes, indeed it was a boiled fruit cake that was the last she ever made (with dad trying to help)… and they’re really easy and moist – perfect as a nibble with a cup of coffee or tea any time of day, as part of a picnic meal, or to take as a packed lunch item.
This is a moist cake that, kept in an airtight container or wrapped in foil, will stay moist for many days to come, or can be frozen whole or in slices.
The prep time is about 5 minutes, then there’s 10 minutes of cooling time; the cooking part takes about 1¾ hours … so from start to finish it’s about 2 hours!
Note: You can, if you wish, use a saucepan to melt the initial ingredients, but that just takes a bit longer!
Boiled Fruit Cake Ingredients:
- 60 grams block margarine, Stork, or a supermarket’s own brand Baking Block
- 60 grams granulated sugar, or whatever type you’ve got
- 90 grams of mixed fruit, or just currants/sultanas if that’s what you’ve got!
- ¼ teaspoon mixed spice, for taste
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, to help with rising
- 60ml boiling water
- ½ egg, large
- 90 grams Self Raising flour.
Method:
- Slice the margarine into a microwave safe dish and melt it, which will take about 45 seconds.
- Add the sugar, mixed fruit, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda and give it all a good stir.
- Microwave on high power (800 watts) for 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds – just get it to the point where the ingredients are boiling.
- Remove the dish from the microwave, add the boiling water and leave it to cool for 5-10 minutes. (Note: You can add the boiling water at the start, before it goes into the microwave, if you wish). Fold in the self raising flour – don’t beat the mix, just fold until the flour’s gone.
- Add the beaten egg – this recipe uses ½ an egg, which is a pain – so either use the whole of the smallest egg you have, or just sigh and pour half in. You can freeze the other half to be used next time you need half an egg (I know, it’s a pain).
- Grease your baking dish – I use cheap takeaway foil containers that fit perfectly in my 3.5 litre slow cooker, bought “8 for £1” from Poundland. You do need to check your container fits inside your slow cooker before you add the cake ingredients!
- Pour the cake mix into the container, place the container in the bottom of your slow cooker without anything else. If you put a sheet of kitchen towel over the slow cooker pot and put the lid on, this will capture spare moisture so it doesn’t drip onto your cake, but it’s not essential to do this.
- Turn the slow cooker onto high and bake for 1¾ hours.
- Once cooked, turn off the slow cooker and allow the cake to stand for 15-20 minutes or so, then remove it from the slow cooker and turn it out of the container onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Wipe down the baking container and you can use that to pop the cold cake back in to store – and if you’ve used takeaway dishes then you get a handy cardboard lid to use. Otherwise, either wrap the cake in foil, or put into an airtight container to stay moist.
NOTE: Personally I find this cake is best left to cool completely before eating, although a slice is lovely when it’s still warm, it’s also a treat in the coming days.
You should be able to smell the cake after 1½ hours …. tempting, but leave it, it’s nearly done!
NOTE: As every slow cooker and container are different, you should make a note of how long yours took to cook and then use that time for your future cakes. The time to bake will be roughly the same, but will vary 15-20 minutes or so…. so don’t forget to note down your time in your slow cooker in the dish you use! The deeper the mix, the longer it takes to cook in the middle.
Tips:
- You should find that the lid doesn’t mist up – if the slow cooker lid does mist up, then put a couple of sheets of paper towel between the lid and the slow cooker pot to soak up the excess moisture. You don’t want that dripping onto your cake!
- You don’t have to use a container if you don’t have one that fits – just line the slow cooker with baking parchment or even lightly greased foil, then pour the ingredients in. I use a container because it’s easier to take out and a more “cake shape” when finished. Food tastes the same no matter what the shape 🙂 Of course, if you do this, it will probably cook a little quicker as it will be less deep, so keep an eye on it after 1½ hours to see if it’s baked.
- Use any dried fruit, or glace cherries, or even mixed nuts you have around.
Calorie Warning:
To state the obvious – this is CAKE – it’s LOADED with calories. To make a cake you take a lump of fat and add it to a pile of sugar…..
The total calories in this cake is about 1200, so go easy. I ended up eating most of it in one go, which meant I had to cut back on “proper meals” for the rest of the day 🙂
Total Calories: ~1200