IT’S A KEEPER
A wholemeal fruitcake made by a Welsh grandmother now sustains her granddaughter’s children.
NAN DOWLING’S WHOLEMEAL fruitcake has stood the test of time over more than a century. Her granddaughter Karen Barnes, 71, who lives on the north coast of Tasmania, recalls how this tried-and-true recipe came down the line from her grandmother, Elizabeth Dowling (pictured above right), to her mother and finally to her. “Mum wrote three of Nan’s recipes on blue paper for me and the fruitcake was the only one I wrote in my own recipe book,” she says. “My mum made this cake for years and I used to make it all the time for my family — I had three boys who were always hungry and the fruitcake was marvellous. It was very good for lunchboxes and when you knew people were coming to visit. A sponge cake might be gone in one sitting, but the fruitcake is a good keeper. Nan used to tell me to put an apple in the tin with it if the cake dried out a bit.” While Karen isn’t sure what year her grandmother emigrated from Wales to South Australia, she does know that Elizabeth arrived in Adelaide with her husband Samuel and two young boys. Another boy and a daughter (Karen’s mother) were born not long after. The farm that Elizabeth and Samuel finally moved to in the Adelaide Hills couldn’t have been more different from her home in Wales. “I went to see the farm in Wales, where she grew up,” says Karen. “It was a lovely twostorey brick place on the side of a hill, and down the road was a beautiful old church with a Norman tower where she was married. She came to a wattle-and-daub hut in the gully of the farm in the Adelaide Hills. There was a creek in the gully that was their water supply as well as a rainwater tank, and her oven was in the cliff near the bank until they built a brick farmhouse at the top of the hill. From the rolling pastures and daffodils of Wales to a very, very hot summer in the Adelaide Hills.” Two of Karen’s uncles stayed on the dairy farm and whenever Karen and her mother visited her Nan, there was always a fruitcake in the cake tin in the cupboard. “She used to cut it into little triangles for visitors, but if it was for ‘the boys’, as she called them, she’d cut it into slices and sometimes even buttered it. It was a very easy cake to mix up and put in the oven, and fruitcake is sustaining for hard-working men—and hungry granddaughters.” Elizabeth (pictured above, on the right) lived well into her eighties, and Karen remembers her with great fondness. “She had a beautiful home, gardens and orchard, and that’s been my ideal all my life. And there was always delicious fruitcake in the tin!”
WHOLEMEAL FRUITCAKE
Serves 10-12 1½ cups raw sugar 1 cup raisins, roughly chopped if large 1 cup sultanas ½ cup mixed peel (optional) 60g butter, roughly chopped 2 teaspoons cinnamon ½ teaspoon mixed spice 3 eggs ¾ cup milk ¼ cup whole blanched almonds, roughly chopped 1½ cups wholemeal self-raising flour 1½ cup self-raising flour extra ⅓ cup whole blanched almonds
Grease a deep 23cm round cake pan, then line base and sides with a double layer of baking paper. Place sugar, raisins, sultanas, mixed peel, butter, cinnamon, mixed spice and 1 cup water in a large saucepan. Stir over a medium heat until butter melts and mixture boils. Cover with a lid and boil for 5 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Preheat oven to 180°C. Transfer cooled fruit mixture to a large bowl. Whisk eggs and milk together in a separate bowl. Add to fruit mixture and stir to combine. Add almonds and flours, and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Spoon mixture into prepared pan, then use back of a wet spoon to smooth surface. Decorate top of cake with extra almonds. Bake for 1¼ hours or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Remove from oven. Wrap cake in pan in a clean tea towel and set aside to cool overnight. Slice and serve.
SHARE YOUR FAMILY FAVOURITES
Do you have a recipe that has been passed down through generations? Send us your recipe, the story behind it and a photograph (preferably a copy or scan) of the relative who passed it on. Remember to include a daytime telephone number. Email Kylie Imeson at kimeson@bauer-media.com.au or send a letter to Heirloom Recipe, Country Style, PO Box 4088, Sydney NSW, 1028.