The Churchill Fruit Cake

This is a recipe very close to my heart. I thought I would share this in collaboration with The National Trust who shared it in their newsletter only a few days ago. Most of you will know that it is the 75th Anniversary of VE Day on 8th May 2020. VE Day (United Kingdom) or V-E Day (USA), is a day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945.

This cake recipe was shared by Winston Churchill’s cook Georgina Landemare who cooked for Winston in both Downing Street and their private resistance Chartwell during WW2. When the war was over Georgina Landemare got a special mention by Winston when he said he ”could not have managed throughout the war without her cooking’.

As Winston Churchill is not only one of my personal idols but an idol for many around the world there is no more fitting cake to make for this years (or any other years) VE Day Celebrations. Why not have a garden party with those in your household and share pictures online with your friends and family.

We have used this recipe from the National Trust recipe page. For me this made two smaller cakes but if you have a large cake tin this may only make one.

The Ingredients:
225g butter
170g dark brown sugar
285g self-raising flour
280g dried fruit
2 cups strong black tea (I believe this is 2 TEACUPS of tea as per the period recipe. This is about 1.5 small mugs of tea)
5 eggs
110g halved glacé cherries
1tsp mixed spice

The How-To:
Soak the dried fruit in tea, preferably overnight. (for a few hours is enough if you don’t have time!)
Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, until almost white. Remember to scrape the sides of the bowl and continue to cream together.
Gradually beat the eggs into the mixture, remember to add a little flour to stop the mixture from splitting or curdling.
Fold in the flour and add the mixed spice to the mixture.
Add the the mixed fruit in the tea and the glacé cherries and continue to fold together.

Preheat oven to 150 degrees and line and grease a cake tin.

Once completely mixed together, scrape the mixture into the cake tin and leave to bake for 2 hours. Check that the cake is cooked throughout before leaving to cool on a wire rack.

Finish with a light dusting of caster sugar.