Tennis cake

Name: Tennis cake
Yield: Serves 10 to 12
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon crystallised ginger, finely chopped; 115 g/4 oz/1 cup each dried peaches, apricots, cherries, mango, pineapple, sultanas and chopped mixed citrus peel, un-dyed; milk; 1–2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger; 115 g/4 oz/½ cup caster sugar; 350 g/12 oz/3 cups self-raising flour; 6 tablespoons white rum; 225 g/8 oz/2 cups blanched almonds, chopped; 115 g/4 oz/½ cup lavender sugar; a pinch of salt; 4 eggs, lightly beaten; 225 g/8 oz/2 sticks unsalted butter

Preparation info

Serves
10 to 12

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Floral Baker

By Frances Bissell

Published 2014

About

This is an excellent fruit cake for summer, using the lighter Mediterranean and tropical fruits, rather than dark vine fruits. A sturdy cake, this is the kind that would have been taken on picnics with ‘lashings of ginger beer’.

Ingredients

6 tablespoons white rum
115 g/4 oz/1

Cake
Snack
Dessert
Vegetarian
Summer

Method

Pour half the spirit over the fruit, nuts and ginger, and let it soak while you prepare the cake batter. Cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs and flour alternately, together with the salt. When thoroughly mixed, stir in the soaked fruit and add enough milk to give a soft dropping consistency to the mixture. Grease and line a 20