I know what you're thinking. "That's impossible! A fruit cake with only three ingredients? How could it possibly taste any good!"
It's exactly what I thought when Kim McCosker, author of renowned cookbook 4 Ingredients, presented her Three Ingredient Fruit Cake to a slightly sceptical but curious audience of local ladies (and one man) at the Agnes Water local library last Saturday.
Feeling extra peckish that morning, I was ready to chomp on any piece of barely edible fruitish concrete on offer, so I impatiently waited my turn for my piece of cake, however many ingredients it did or didn't have.
What ensued after my first bite was quite frankly, shock, followed by delight, followed by sending multiple subliminal "can-I-have-another-piece-of-cake-please" messages to Kim McCosker's cake-carrying-assistant, while desperately trying to keep my inner impatient child from spoiling carefully crafted projections of a calm and dignified forty-something-year-old woman.
I wanted more of that cake, please.
I got my second piece, and it was even more delightful than the first.
What were those three ingredients, I hear you asking?
You may wish to sit down before reading further. Here they are:
One packet of mixed dried fruit.
Three cups of self-raising flour.
AND... the moment you have all been waiting for...
Three cups of TEA!!!
Oh the rapture, the joy, the "aha!!!" moment that should fill every crevice of every tea-loving-blog-reading-being.
Blessed TEA!
Everyone's Christmases have truly come at once!
So moist, so fruitful, so moreish. So much tea.
And the best thing? It barely costs a dime to make.
Here's the recipe, in case you want to make some too:
Three Ingredient Fruit Cake
Shared with permission from cookbook 4-Ingredient Celebrations, by Kim McCosker
Ingredients
- 1kg | 35oz dried mixed fruit
- 3 cups (450gm | 16oz) of self-raising flour
- 3 cups (750ml | 25oz) of brewed tea (I can't wait to try this recipe using Tielka's Earl Royale!)
Directions
- Soak mixed dried fruit in brewed tea overnight.
- Heat oven to 125°C | 257°F
- Mix all ingredients (you may need some extra muscle to stir!) and scrape mixture into 22-cm paper-lined cake tin
- Bake in the lower third of your oven for 2.5 hours or until cooked through
- Allow to cool completely and wrap in aluminium foil in an airtight container where this cake will keep nicely for weeks.
Kim's tip: add your favourite spices and save time and energy by cooking several fruit cakes in your oven at once