Pumpkin Fruit Cake

This fruit cake recipe I'm about to share with you is perfect for this time of year; it uses only two eggs (most chooks being off the lay) and pumpkin which is in glut now. For this recipe I choose a QLD blue which is a dryer style pumpkin and the rest of it I will use up roasting.

The pumpkin gives the cake moistness and a lovely golden colour. You only need a cup of mash. Just cook it up and mash it without any butter or anything else.

This cake is cooked for about 1 1/2 hours at 150C so choose a good tin and line with paper. You don't have to be as fastidious as when making traditional fruit cakes. This favourite tin of mine is quite thick and I lightly grease and simply pop an old pound butter paper in the bottom to line. 

This is great-grandma Murray's recipe and the only addition I make is grated fresh nutmeg - Mmmm goes so well with pumpkin. I'll write out the recipe below in metric also

Cool in the tin before turning out and store in a cool airtight container for a week. Use your own favourite combo of mixed dried fruit. 

I have in mind that I just might try this recipe next time substituting the pumpkin for mashed quince instead....

Pumpkin Fruit Cake

1 cup of mashed pumpkin

250g castor sugar

250g butter

2 eggs

2 tabs golden syrup

2 cups of Self Raising flour

500g mixed fruit

pinch of freshly ground nutmeg (optional)

Caraway Seed In Your Garden

So you grow tomatoes and beans and parsley. now what about throwing some of the other herbs and spices into the garden bed too. Caraway has a lovely rich feathery foliage and grows in full sun...

and pretty much looks after itself given good soil and normal watering conditions. It will throw up long flowering stems upon which lacy umbels of white flowers will grow and from them ensue the caraway seed. When the seed heads are good and ripe and starting to dry I pick the stems and place them upside down in a carefully marked (and misspelt ) brown paper bag and hang it out of the way somewhere dry so they can keep ripening and become brittle.

Many of the seeds will naturally fall into the bottom of the bag and others may need to be gently encouraged by rolling through finger tips. Repeated winnowing (tossing and blowing across the chaff) will result in a modest harvest.

Store them in a labelled glass jar in your store cupboard.

They taste and smell quite exotic and although many describe it akin to anise I think it would be fairer to say the flavour is more like a cousin of anise, very subtle with cumin like notes too. Caraway is part of the Apiaceae family: carrot, parsley, cumin, dill, fennel, Queen Anne's Lace, coriander, anise..thus you can see the relationships of foliage, flowers, smell and taste.

So why bother growing caraway?

Well for one thing, like anything you grow yourself, you know it's chemical free and where it comes from. It is a lot more potent than the aged specimen you buy in the spice shops here and it makes for a good companion plant masking the scent of other crops. It is relatively small in growing habit and very attractive. Bees seem to like it too. Caraway seeds are commonly used in bread baking and cakes and they particularly enliven cabbage dishes and dress carrots and other root vegetables nicely. You won't believe how they transform simple lightly steamed cabbage just by tossing a teas through and the fragrant steam that rises is eyelash flutteringly yum. I think they go particularly well in a Cheese and Caraway Scone, lovely with butter and an afternoon cup of tea.

One of my favourite recipes is this very vanillary/custardy Caraway Seed Cake and I've been making this since I was 13 yrs old from my old school cookery book. I've also converted it to a Thermomix version as well. For both versions, pre-heat oven to 180C and grease and line a loaf tin about 14cm x 21cm.

Caraway Seed Cake

Ingredients

125g butter

1 cup of castor sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 1/4 cups self raising flour

1/4 cup of custard powder

2 tabs caraway seeds (less if they are fresh and home grown!)

Beat butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour and custard powder with an electric mixer till combined and then beat on medium for 3 mins until the mix is changed in colour. Stir in the caraway seeds and bake in a mod-slow (150-180C) oven for an hour until a skewer comes out cleanly. Stand for 5 mins before turning out onto a cooling rack.

Thermomix Version

Process 250g of sugar to castor sugar by blending for 3sec on speed 9.

Add 120g butter

120g milk

2 eggs

210g self raising flour

40g custard powder

process for 30-40 sec on speed 6.

Add 2 tabs caraway seeds (less if potent and fresh home grown)

and mix on reverse speed 4 for 3 secs to combine.

Bake in a mod to slow oven (150-180C) for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Stand for 5 mins before turning out onto a cooling rack.

Upside Down Plum Cake (Conventional and Thermomix Version)

When plums are in glut this is one of my favourite cakes to make every year. The combination of sweet honey and rosewater marry perfectly with the tart plums. It is an adapted recipe from Vogue Entertaining magazine autumn 2003.

Ingredients

185g butter

400g castor sugar (or regular

sugar if you have a Thermomix)

1 tabs of honey

6 large plums eg blood plums stoned 

and sliced lengthwise into sixths

2 large eggs

2 teas rose water

185g self raising flour

1/2 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 180C

Conventional Method

Put half the butter and half the sugar and honey into a saucepan and stir over a low heat till the butter melts and makes like a sauce with the sugar.

Pour this into the bottom of a 23cm/9" cake tin (preferably not a springform as it may leak during cooking)

place the cut plums on top making an outer circle and then one inside that.

Cream the remaining butter and sugar, add one egg at a time beating well then the rosewater. 

Add the flour and milk alternately and when mixed pour over the plum slices. 

Bake for about an hour till a skewer comes out clean

(pretty standard huh, that's what is good about this cake)

Let it cool for half an hour and the sides tend to shrink away from the tin but if unsure run a knife around before inverting onto a plate.

Thermomix Method

Place half the sugar in the Thermomix and process 3 seconds on speed 9.

Add half the butter and a tab of honey 

1.5 mins, 50C, speed 3

Pour this sauce over the bottom of a 23cm'9" cake tin

arrange plum slices on top as in attractive circles working from the outside in.

No need to wash the Thermomix

Place the remaining sugar in and process to castor as before 

Add the butter and blend 3 secs speed 5-6

Add the eggs, flour, milk and rosewater

Blend on speed 5-6 for 30secs

Pour on top of the plum slices.

Bake for about an hour till a skewer comes out cleanly.

Let it cool for half an hour and the sides tend to shrink away from the tin but if unsure run a knife around before inverting onto a plate.

You must use butter and nothing will substitute or you will have an inferior result, it really is king in this recipe. You could use vanilla essence instead of the rosewater but hey, you bought a bottle of it for that other recipe so you might as well use it up! If you don't have rosewater go and buy some. It's great to have in the cupboard and really turns a milk pudding into a panna cotta. This year I used ginger honey but if you are a leatherwood honey fan you'll enjoy that instead. Oh the combination possibilities!