Monday, November 20, 2006

My Favorite Tea Cake:

The Dundee Cake

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground allpice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2/3 cup blanched whole almonds
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup golden raisins
2/3 cup dried currants
1/2 cup diced candied citron
1/2 cup diced candied orange or lemon peel
1/2 cup red candied cherries, chopped
1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks), softened
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons orange-flavored liqueur

About ingredients: My candied orange are homemade, it tastes much better.I've used dried cranberries instead of cherries -very good result-. I've used dried mango instead of candied citron. It was good too.

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F or 150 C. Grease and flour 8-inch springform pan.
2. In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, allspice, and cinnamon.
3. In food processor with knife blade attached, combine 1/3 cup almonds and 1/4 cup sugar. Process until almonds are finaly ground. In a medium bowl, mix ground-almond mixture, raisins, currants, citron, orange peel, and cherries.
4. In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat remaining 3/4 cup sugar and butter until blended. Increase speed to medium-high and beat 5 minutes, or until light and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in orange liqueur. Reduce speed to low; beat in flour mixture until blended, scraping bowl ( batter will be thick). Stir in fruit mixture.
5. Spoon batter into prepare pan, spreading evenly. Arrange remaining 1/3 cup almonds on top of batter. Bake 2 hours to 2 hours15 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cover pan loosely with foil after 1 hour to prevent top from overbrowning.
Cool in pan on wire rack for 20 minutes. With small knife, loosen cake from side of pan; remove pan side. Cool completely on wire rack. When cool, remove pan bottom and wrap cake in plastic wrap and then foil. Let stand overnight before serving.

Two days after, the cake tastes even better.

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