Traditional Yorkshire Ale Fruit Cake

Big news - I'm branching into wedding cakes! I've always wanted to, and I would have done my own if it wouldn't have been too much with doing the flowers as well.

So, I've already got two orders on the books - one for an August wedding, and another one in April 2014. I've started experimenting with the one for April. The bride is from Yorkshire and wants a rich fruit cake made with ale as opposed to brandy, in particular Black Sheep Riggwelter ale. I've therefore been trialling a recipe - my intention is, I've made a cake now, and I'll make another one in about 6 weeks time and then work out how long it needs to mature.

I got the recipe from Lindy Smith's book (will post the recipe later) and I replaced the brandy with a much larger quantity of ale. From my understanding you don't need to feed an ale fruit cake, you just soak it in a lot more in the first place, and then it retains the moisture.

I soaked the fruit for 36 hours and that was just about long enough to soak it all in.

I creamed the butter and sugar and then slowly added the eggs and flour. It hen poured the fruit into the cake mixture and then put it in a lined cake tin.

The tin was 4 1/2 inches, and I cooked it for 30 mins at 130 degree fan and then about an hour and a half on 110 degree fan. When it was done, the top was firm, and a skewer came out clean.

I left the baking paper on and wrapped it in a further layer of baking paper and then a layer of foil - if you put foil straight next to the cake the fruit acids can attack it. I then put it in a tin and will now wait for it to mature! Watch this space :)

Long time no speak - apologies!

It's been a long time since my last post. Life got extremely busy for a while - I still had time to squeeze in some baking and making, but not enough time to blog about it! So, the last few weeks have been filled with making custard slices, fruit cake and renovating an old singer treadle sewing machine.

I've decided to change this blog from Kayleigh Bakes, to Kayleigh Bakes and Makes, as I also spend time sewing and doing up furniture, and this seems like a good place to document it all.

So, first up: custard slices.

Recipe here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/custard_slice_58534

This was my first attempt at ruff puff pastry and it was actually pretty easy. It took three turns and a bit of chilling in between each turn.

The "custard" was just a creme patisserie which my husband had great delight eating straight from the bowl!

I didn't have a tin the size stipulated so I just used the only large deep pan that I had, and I used baking beans to get the tin to size (see photo). It was winging it a bit, but it worked fine for me!