BBC Good Food Magazine chocolate fruit cake - review

I made six versions of the cake in the Christmas edition of the BBC Good Food magazine.  All of these stages are described in earlier posts.

I did initial taste tests, but thought I really needed to see how the cakes matured.  I tested them again a few days later.  In general those made with butter tasted better than those made with Pure dairy-free margarine.  The cakes made with Doves Farm flour had the pastiest texture and were somewhat unpleasant.  The Bob's Red Mill flour produced a better cake initially, but over time the texture became grainier and pastier as well, and the flavour of the chickpeas in the flour became more pronounced.  The cakes made with my flour mix, (urid lentils, tapioc and polenta), tasted the best to start with and continued to taste better.

However, I have to admit I got really bored trying to run these taste tests.  In the end I gave all the cakes away to my sister, and she heroically did a test, and gave me the same results.

The real problem with this cake is not what fat is used or what flour is used, but that chocolate and fruit just don't sit happily together.  This cake was advertised as one that might please people that didn't like fruit cake.  I think it would displease people that liked fruit cake and displease people who liked chocolate cake.  Make one of each.  That is a much better solution to meeting the needs of people with a variety of tastes over Christmas.

Update - Chocolate christmas cake - gluten free flour and dairy/dairy-free taste test

On November 19th I posted a trial of the BBC Good Food chocolate Christmas cake, using three different gluten-free flours and dairy/non-dairy fat ( http://bit.ly/9TC6E3).  We just retested the cakes, on Nov 25th, as they have had some time to mature.

The flavours have blended with the extra time and it isn't so much of a shock to have chocolate with fruit lumps.  The textures of the cakes are closer together.  We still liked the one made with my own blend of flour and the butter best.  The Bob's Red Mill flour, from lavidafood.com, made with Pure, was good, so if you want a vegan gluten free cake made from standard flour rather than mixing your own I suggest this is a good choice.

Doves Farm was still producing a fine pasty texture - I think it is the rice in the flour mix.

BBC Good Food Chocolate Fruitcake p151 Dec 2010 magazine bbcgoodfood.com

Original recipe calls for butter and self-raising flour. I have had a look at the recipe and decided to make six different versions for comparison.

Flour swaps

I was going to test Doves Farm, my own mix and chestnut puree. I drove to a large supermarket thinking they would be bound to have chestnut puree seeing as they had converted the entire store to Christmas shopping. Couldn't find it, staff couldn’t find it, computer at customer services said there were 19 tins but it didn’t know where they would be. I gave up. Instead I tried a flour I was given recently called Bob’s Red Mill all purpose baking flour. I have seen it in lots of US recipes. A UK supplier has started stocking it and sent me some bags to test (lavidafood.com). I was tempted to try grated sweet potato, as that has worked well in recipes before, but I decided six recipes at once was quite sufficient.

I divided the full recipe into three as there were three eggs. Using double the ingredients gave me the six cakes.

I also used raisins instead of current as I don’t have currents. I used cranberries and blueberries instead of sour cherries and mixed peel. Peel always has sulphites in it I and I try to avoid these. I had meant to put some citrus zest in to balance the flavour but decided not to as I ran out of energy. Once I know what flour and fat mix works I can worry about tweaking the flavour if needed.

Ingredients

65g fat (either butter or Pure margarine)

65g dark brown soft sugar

35g dark chocolate

25ml rum (it asked for brandy but I had rum available)

1/3 tsp vanilla

160g raisins (should have been half currants)

50g cranberries

50g blueberries

........

65g flour (Doves Farm, Bob's Red Mill, or 40g urid lentil and 25g tapioca)

1 tsp baking powder

35g ground almonds

1tsp cocoa

1/3 tsp mixed spice

.........

1 egg, beaten with fork

Method

Place first group of ingredients in saucepan and heat gently until chocolate and fat have melted.

Stir in egg when mix is cool enough not to scramble the egg

Sift / whisk third group of ingredients together and stir into mix.

Place in greased and lined tin and bake. Original recipe calls for 150C /130C fan / gas2 for about 1.5 hrs. I set my oven to 35 minutes for the first check as I have small cakes and the adjustable tins which cook more speedily.

In order to tell which cake was which when finished I put varying types of nuts on the top of the batter and, here is the important bit, made a note of which was which.

As I was using a Silverwood Multisize Foldaway cake pan lining it was a bit awkward. I found that if I cut nine strips of non-stick baking parchment the width of the tin I could place one each way into the tin with the edges sticking up. I then took another piece the same size, greased it, wrapped it around my hand, and putting my hand into the small cake tin, let it spring open into place.

They are in the oven, not quite done at 35minutes. Will post results of taste tests later this week.