Fruit Pudding Cake

A Christmas pudding reconstructed as a layered cake!

Milestone celebrations call for something special! Hubby's Brother asked me to cook a Christmas pudding for their mother's 90th birthday celebration. With 20 guests I needed to double the quantity of the ingredients and, because we weren't having a cake, I decided to turn the pudding into a cake.

For the last couple of months I've been planning the details of the ‘pudding cake’:

• Should the cake have layers?
• Should it be a piñata cake with berries and chocolates hidden inside?
• What should I put between the layers? Cream cheese? Jam? Cream? Icing?

I settled on a layered cake with brandy buttercream icing to keep that Christmas-y feel.

I used my low fat Christmas pudding recipe for the cake layers and the buttercream icing recipe as the basis of the brandy buttercream.

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Serves 16-30

Because the Christmas pudding is quite rich and there are two layers, people might prefer smaller slices. We served 25 people and still had just over a quarter of the cake left.

Times

Preparation:

• 1 hour for each cake layer
• 5 minutes for icing
• 20-30 minutes for assembly

Cooking:

• For each cake layer 3 hours for steaming, and optionally, 5-10 minutes in microwave or 1 hour in oven to reheat
• 20 minutes for icing

Ingredients

• For each layer:
• 275g mixed fruit
• ¼ cup rum
• 75g glace cherries, halved or quartered
• 75g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp mixed spice or, ½tsp cinnamon, ¼tsp nutmeg and ¼tsp allspice
• 50g breadcrumbs (about 1 slice of bread roughly torn)
• 50g raw sugar
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 170g apple, peeled, cored and thinly sliced (yields about 115g sliced apple)
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup skim milk
• 2 Tbs honey
• Optional: ¼ cup extra rum for serving
• For brandy buttercream icing:
• ¾ cup milk
• 2 Tbs plain flour
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• ¹/₈ cup (equivalent to 30ml or 1½Tbs) brandy
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Berries and mint leaves, or other decorations

Method

1. Make the cake layers. For each layer:
   1. Line a cake tin with baking paper.

      For the pictured cake I used two 20cm (8") round cake tins.

   2. Create the pudding mixture as described in the Low Fat Christmas Pudding recipe.
   3. Pour the mixture in the cake tin, cover with foil, and then steam for 3 hours.
   4. Store layer in the refrigerator or freezer, if assembling the cake on another day.
2. Make the icing.
   Use the buttercream icing recipe to make a double-sized serving, stirring in the brandy before adding the cooled milk and flour mixture.
3. Assemble the cake:
   1. Unless you plan to reheat the cake layers, remove layers from the freezer and let them defrost.
   2. Optional: Prick the top of each layer and pour the extra rum over each layer. Either heat the layer in the microwave for 5 minutes or steam in the oven for 1 hour.

   Ensure that each layer cools enough before icing the layers, otherwise the butter in the icing melts (so I discovered).

   3. Place one layer on a serving plate. Trim the top of the layer to give a flat surface.
   4. Cover the layer with half the icing and place the second layer on top.
   5. Cover the second layer with icing.
   6. Decorate with berries and mint leaves, or other decorations.

Serve as is or with ice cream or french vanilla yoghurt.

Tips

• Substitute non-dairy products to make the cake suitable for those with dairy allergies or who are lactose intolerant. I used soy milk and a non-dairy spread instead of skim milk and butter.
• The original pudding recipe indicated that the pudding can be cooked in the microwave on high for 10 minutes. I like steaming, I find it makes the pudding moist. Because the puddings take so long to steam, I made the layers over a couple of weekends.