General Chat

I am making my usual xmas cake this year but...I have a larger square tin. So I want to know if I double the ingredients, will it work out. My fruit cake is a lighter than traditional xmas cake and its boiled in a pan.

When that's done and cooled, you add the mixture to the flour etc and mix well until its a very thick heavy batter.

I had thought of making 2 separate lots and then pouring both mixtures into the tin?

Anyone else ever doubled a fruit mixture and it turned out ok?

Florence in the hebrides

So long as you double all the ingredients the mixture will be fine, but calculating cooking time is more difficult.

Using Google, for a rich fruit cake, the cooking time goes up ½hr for each inch of length. You might find something similar for lighter fruit cakes. Good luck.

ok thanks Andys mum. It normally cooks for 1 1/4 hours. That is 8x8 in. This tin is 10x10 in so on that basis i should add an extra hour in cooking. So total time would be 2 1/4 hours.

The tin is 2 1/2 in depth. If I use the original recipe, it would be not very deep so thats when i thought it would be better to double up.

Thanks for you help

Florence in the hebrides

I did a similar cake for a special birthday. Mine was fairly rich but was a boiled fruit cake like yours and I doubled the ingredients. As Andysmum said, it needs longer cooking and you might have to cover the top if you don’t want it to burn. I guessed at the cooking time and then kept testing it with a skewer till it seemed cooked through.

Please can I come to tea when it’s made :-D

Yes ty Vera, That came to mind about covering it otherwise it just may burn. Im making it on the 23rd Dec. Because its a light fruit cake(Mrs Robbins), I can ice it straightaway once its cooled down. I make up royal icing and add some glycerine to it.

If you lived nearer, you would be very welcome to come for cake & a cuppa.

Florence in the hebrides :-D

Whatever you do, Florence, don’t do what I did the last time I made Xmas cakes.

A few years ago I decided to make a couple of them and added a good glug or two of what I thought was sherry. They were ready well before Xmas and suitably stored in cake tins - just before the November death of my lovely sis-in-law who would have howled with laughter if she was aware of my slip-up. (She had a raucous sense of humour.)

Two of her children who live down the country came to her funeral and they were staying with their Dad for two or three days afterwards. Knowing that L always had a fruit cake on the go, I gave her widower one of my fruit cakes so he and his children could have a slice with their coffee/tea.

Come Christmas, I cut a piece of my own, took a bite and … YUK …. I’d only used Tia Maria instead of sherry!

No one had said anything in November so I rang our niece to see how she was and asked about the cake. She hesitated and uummed a bit so I said, ‘It didn’t taste good, did it?’ Only then did she admit they’d all taken a bite and ditched the lot. Her reaction, when I told her what I’d done was hilarious and she, too, said that she thought her Mum would have found it really funny.

So, Florence, read the label! ;-) :-D

Oh JL. that made me laugh and as it happens, I used to love Tia Maria but def not in a xmas cake!!!

As Neither myself or daughter can drink alcohol because of meds, there will not be any going into my cake, so no danger of getting anything mixed up lol

Funny though as noone wanted to tell you probably because they didnt want to offend you.

Florence in the hebrides