Date and Cranberry Fruitcake

Fruitcake.  You either love it or hate it. So if you love it, why do you wait until Christmas to have it?

This one is moist, chewy and has a very rich and slightly bittersweet flavour given it by the caramel that's incorporated into the batter.


Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt

3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Caramel:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup hot water

Icing sugar to dust

Prepare an 8 1/2  X  4 1/2" loaf pan by spraying with cooking oil and lining the bottom with parchment.

Make the caramel. First heat sugar in a pan until caramelized and dark. Carefully add the hot water, stir to combine and remove from heat. Cool about 5 minutes in the fridge.

Toast walnuts in a small pan 5-10 minutes.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside


Whisk sugar and eggs together, then add the oil. When caramel is cooled add it to these wet ingredients along with the vanilla. If the caramel has cooled too much and starts to set just re-heat a little.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet just until combined.

Toss the cranberries, dates and walnuts in 1 tbsps of flour, then fold into the batter. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake at 350 F for 1 hour and 15-20 minutes.
A cake tester should come out clean. It's a dense cake so you can see in this side-by-side pic it didn't rise alot.

Cool about 15 minutes, then remove to rack to cool completely. Don't forget to cover with a clean dishtowel. Once cooled dust with icing sugar.