Breakfast, back at my home, has always been idli and dosa. Varieties and new recipes do come in every now and then, but nothing has come even close to challenging the position of dosa and idli.

The only time there was a serious competition was when my mother bought the oven. What followed was a cake festival.  The three of us would hang around the oven sniffing and compelling the cake to complete baking just by looking at it.

I still remember my mother munching on a piece of fruit cake and commenting, ‘Mmm..very nice. We can have this for breakfast instead of the same old idli and dosa’.

The oven may have won the battle, but the war was won by idli ultimately. After a fervent baking session, the oven was shoved aside to a corner and the idli cooker resumed its usual place.

When I saw this boiled fruit cake in Joy of Baking, it reminded me of the cake amma used to make. So I too started the nostalgic process of adding the raisins and tutti fruities to the batter, while Shreyas hang around saying, ‘Mmm.. smells nice’.

Ingredients:

• Sugar                                        :              1 cup (Brown, if possible)
• Hot water                                :             1 cup
• Butter                                       :              1/4 cup (50 gms)
• Mixed Spice                           :              1 tsp (or ground cinnamon + ground cloves)
• Ground Ginger                      :              1 tsp
• Eggs                                           :              2
• All purpose flour                 :              1 1/2 cups
• Baking soda                            :              1 tsp
• Vanilla Extract                     :              1 tsp
• Raisins                                      :             1 cup (about 100 gms)
• Candied Fruit                         :             3/4 cup (about 120 gms)

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 C. Grease a 9″ long loaf pan.
2. In a large pan, add the hot water, butter, raisins, ground ginger,sugar and mixed spice powder. You can include half a teaspoon of salt too, if you want to. Bring this to a boil, and let it cook for 5 minutes. Take off the heat, let it cool.
3. Beat the eggs and add it to the boiled fruit. Make sure that its cool, else the eggs might get cooked! Mix.
4. Add the flour, baking soda, vanilla extract and candied fruit. Mix. Pour the batter into the greased pan.
5. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes free of crumbs.

Linked to:

• Bake Fest, hosted this month by The Pumpkin Farm
• Kid’s Delight, for this month’s theme ‘Something Sweet’
• Hearth and Soul Hop