Pineapple Fruit Cake Recipe

This pineapple fruit cake recipe is a great favourite of mine for when you don’t want a very heavy fruit cake. The tin of crushed pineapple gives it a lovely moist sweetness. You can mix and match with whatever dried fruits you happen to have in the pantry, the simplest option being to use 2.5 cups of mixed dried fruit. You can also experiment with different spice mixes as well – I always add a lot more cinnamon regardless. And you can choose to ice the cake if you wish or press almonds into the top and glaze it.

1 cup raisins
1 cup sultanas
1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1x 440g tin crushed pineapple
3/4 cup caster sugar
100g butter
1 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
3 large eggs
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

Put dried fruit, pineapple and its juice, sugar, butter, mixed spice, cinnamon and baking soda in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for 30 mins.

Line a deep 23cm diameter cake tin with baking paper. I usually use a square tin so that I can cut it into 4 to give some of it away or to keep in the freezer.

Beat the eggs. Add to the cooled fruit mixture with lemon juice and zest. Add flour and baking powder and fold into the fruit mixture with a large spoon.

Turn mixture into prepared tin. Bake in an oven preheated to 160C for 1 1/4 hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool, then turn out onto a cake rack.