Chocolate Ale Fruit Cake & Baking Mad

In case anyone hasn't heard, there is a new series of Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard coming to Channel 4; it started yesterday on 5 March at 12:05 and will run every day for 4 weeks. Each 30 minute episode will feature three members of the public who will come to his cookery school, Cake Boy, to demonstrate their baking skills and take part in a "Bake Off". Our very own Dom of Belleau Kitchen will be featuring on 15 March. So that I can share in the fun, I am baking one of Eric's recipes developed especially for the series. Amazingly I still had some chocolate ale left over from the triple chocolate ale brownies I made a year ago and even more amazingly it was still potable. Taking this as a good omen I decided to have a go at making this chocolate ale fruit cake. The flour, sugar and my chosen recipe were provided by Baking Mad.

This is how I did it:

• The afternoon before the day of baking, I placed 390g dried fruit (mostly raisins, but some pineapple & some papaya) in a bowl.
• Added 250ml chocolate ale, gave a good stir, covered and left in a warm place (over a heater) overnight.
• Stirred in 100g dark muscovado sugar.
• Beat in 2 duck eggs - hooray, duck eggs are back in season!
• Sifted in 85g self-raising flour, 100g wholemeal self-raising flour and 3 tsp mixed spice (my mix was allspice, cinnamon, mace, cloves & cayenne).
• Folded the flour in and poured into a buttered 21.5 x 11 cm loaf mould.
• Baked at 140C for 1.5 hrs.
• Left to cool in the tin for 15 minutes then turned out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

This is a robust tasting cake to sustain the workers or as CT put it, "probably good with a nice mug of builder's tea (or chocolate ale even) brought out wrapped in waxed paper from a pair of overalls for elevenses after a long session digging over the beds". It is tangy and moist with a nice chewy texture and is delicious toasted with butter.