TBB: English Dried Fruit Cake

I love fruitcakes! I adore Rose's fruit cake recipe in HCB and bake them every Christmas without fail..and I will bake enough that will last till Chinese New Year. :D

This is equally amazing! I love the fresh apple crunchy texture...

I used a mixture of dried apricot, mango, pineapple and papaya.  I used more local dried fruits because they are cheaper.. LOL!   The combination worked extremely well with the apples. 

Did you notice the zester? It's Rose's ZestN'est Zester!  It's so easy to use and I love how neat it is, i.e., all the zest collected together. And it's very ergonomic designed..I can hold it easily and zest the entire orange/lemon easily! One of my kitchen must have.  :)   

Cooking the sugar and butter first. 

Then add the chopped up apples..I used Pink Lady apples.  I think this is my first time trying out Pink Lady apples. Normally I buy Fuji apples. (Actually I've never really bother what the names of the apples are as long as they are crispy and hard! I hate soft, powdery apples...they are only for babies when you need to scrape the apples with spoon to feed them...hmmm..ok...this statement applies till one day I get old and no longer can eat crunchy apples..lol!)  

Anyway, my point is, next time I'll use Pink Lady apples for baking, I like how it is firm and has a slight tartness to it..yet not as tart as Green apples.  

So easy to make! And add the flour & pecan nuts into the apple mixture and it's all done! 

I've never liked pecan nuts because I thought they tasted rancid. But I was totally WRONG!  What I had been buying are lousy pecans..or spoilt ones..maybe due to the heat! Just recently I purchased a pack of organic Pecan nuts that cos $11+ per 150g (...so expensive!!)...but the nuts were so GOOD and tasted Fresh!..No rancid taste at all!  

And this cake is a rum absorber. I doubled up the rum and still the cake didn't taste too rummy.  

I think can add more rum next time when I make it again.  When I was drowning my cake with rum, I remembered Rose said in her book that her dad likes to pour a lot of rum onto the cake too! 

This is amazing cake!! It's a really refreshing take on traditional fruit cake. I love the fresh apple texture - which the nuts and dried fruits compliment the apple flavor and the rum takes it one notch further.   SOO GOOD!  We all couldn't get enough of it.  I gave half of the cake to a friend and he also said it was moist, great flavor and not too sweet. 

This phrase "Not too sweet" is a huge compliment here!  Means your dessert is good and has right sweetness level!  Often you'll get to hear these comments:- "not too sweet" as compliment and "too sweet" as a disapproval..  

We, Singaporeans known for being health conscious..... examples:-

1)  food coloring, is a no-no (rainbow cakes..you'll get comments like "eww..so much artificial food colouring will get cancer or not?" ... ) 

2)  too sweet - is also a no-no (you'll get comments like "too sweet will get diabetes"..and for children.."bad for teeth"...), 

3) savoury food too salty..(you'll get comments like "so salty, later get high blood pressure"...) 

4) too buttery/too many eggs - you might get comments like "so rich, will get high cholesterol"...)    LOL!

So now, when I give desserts away, I have to be sure that I give to my friends who really like & enjoy desserts,  that way, I don't put unnecessary pressure on those who doesn't want dessert.....!  :)