Another successful liqueur recipe for the book.. I strained and bottled the Winter Liqueur I started five weeks ago, squeezed as much brandy out of the fruit as possible and then used that to make a fruitcake. Truly a nothing wasted liqueur recipe. And very nice the cake is, too. Next year I'll adjust all my timings so I'm baking the cake the week before Christmas as a Christmas cake - this year we just had to try it to see how it was.
The cake recipe is very loosely based on
one by H F-W. The liqueur recipe is cobbled together from several German recipes found on the web. For the brandy I used cheap supermarket own-brand - the fruit and spices will overpower any subtle flavours a premium brand might have.
For the liqueur..
70 cl brandy
20 cl water
150 g brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
120 g dried figs
120 g dried apricots
120 g dried apple or apple rings
50 g raisins
½ vanilla pod
½ stick of cinnamon
3 cloves
3 red peppercorns
1 cardamom podSteep the dried fruit in the brandy for 3 days. Lightly crack the spices. Dissolve the sugar and honey in the water over a low heat with spices Add the spicey syrup to the fruit and brandy and leave for 4-6 weeks before straining and bottling.
For the cake..
225 g self-raising flour
200 g butter
200 g muscavado suger
4 eggs
The fruit from the liqueurGrease a 20 cm springform cake tin. Preheat oven to 160C/Gas 3.
Roughly chop the fruit.
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoon of flour with each.
Fold in the remaining flour, and then fold in the chopped fruit. Keep it light and don't overmix.
Spoon into the cake tin, place into preheated oven and bake for 1.5 hrs or until a knife/skewer comes out clean. You may need to cover the top of the cake part-way through to prevent it burning.