This is the recipe for the three ingredient cake I talked about recently on Facebook.
It’s quite a thing around the internet although I’ve only just come across it. There are different versions here, here and here. Google ‘three ingredient cake’ to find more.
I was very tempted to call it SHTF cake. It is a great thing to have in your repertoire when times have got particularly tough. You could even make it with just two ingredients, the fruit and flour, and use water to moisten. It will fill hungry people with something tasty when there is little to be had.
Having said that, I don’t want to undersell it. It’s a perfectly acceptable cake for its own sake.
I used this version here
Three Ingredient Fruit Cake
The verdict
.
For a cake with so little in it, this is remarkably tasty. It is a solid, Christmas cake like texture, veering towards bread pudding. I really liked it. A piece was good on its own, and super scrummy spread with a generous amount of cold, salted butter. It would probably be lovely fried in a bit of butter too, and maybe served with custard, cream or ice cream.
Variations
I used cold tea as recommended in the recipe I used, but I can’t say that I could taste it.
I didn’t have a bag of mixed fruit but I did have various bits and pieces of dried fruit and used sultanas, currants, apricots, figs and prunes, plus a handful of hazelnuts on the verge of being too old to use. I would also be more than happy to use just one type of fruit
You could use absolutely any mix of dried fruit and it would work well.
The liquid can be tea, coffee, apple juice, orange juice or any fruit juice you like, milk, chocolate milk, a herbal tea. Anything you like really.
Add some mixed spice or cinnamon for a winter flavour. Stir it in, stick your nose in the bowl and smell the mixture. You should be able to tell by the aroma if you have added enough or need to add a bit more.
Add some chopped nuts, walnuts, almonds or maybe salted peanuts
Ingredients
- 600 g dried fruit mixed, with peel, around £1.74
- 600 ml liquid I used cold tea
- 300 g flour self raising, 45p value flour/1.5kg, 9p
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix the mixed fruit and liquid together and leave to soak overnight.
- Please don’t miss out this step, you will get an unsatisfactory result if you do.
- The next day, stir through the flour.
- The mix needs to be just moist, it’s not very wet. I added a bit too much liquid and had to cook it for a good bit longer.
- Put it all in a prepared 20cm tin (lined or buttered), and bake at 160°C for 1 hour or until cooked through.
- Click here to start a 1 hour timer
- Test this with a sharp knife pushed in the cake. If it comes out dry, the cake is done, if wet, cook it for a bit longer.
- Leave to firm in the tin for a bit, then remove and leave to cool on a rack.
- Slice when cold and store in an airtight container, or in the freezer.
It’s a wonde4ful recipe.
It was nice to go through your post. Thanks for sharing the recipe here. Keep up the good work.
Have just put this in the oven as our 2022 Christmas cake. I’ll feed it a bit of booze then put on a bit of marzipan and some cheap ready to roll icing. Looking forward to it and I’ll let you know how it turns out. :0)
Baishakhi – Glad you liked it. I haven’t made it for a while, may be time I did!
I love this. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
I know, I couldn’t quite believe that it would work when I first came across it!
Just tried this using Soya milk as the liquid. Delicious! Who’d have thought it would be so good with so few ingredients.
Glad you liked it! It’s a versatile one too, flavours can be varied by using different fruit, different liquid and adding citrus zest or spice
Thanks Leslie. Very simple which is necessary for a novice baker like me yet the family loved it.
And as a volunteer frugalist ( practicing for if and when needed) it’s good to have some tricks like a cheapy cake recipe up my sleeve.
Thanks again
I like the sound of breakfast pancakes !
As you say, if it is so filling, it would be worth the outlay.
Thank you
I don’t know of any. The idea is that you only have to buy 2 ingredients. The smaller cake uses 600g.
The cake is dense and supplies lots of calories, so could fill you up when times are hard
Using the same two ingredients you could make breakfast pancakes if you need to stretch the fruit further
If you reduce the fruit in the cake, you’d need to add eggs or it would be too dense
Have you any suggestions? Very happy to hear them
This looks delicious – I can amost taste it ! BUT if you are watching the pennies and have hit hard times, surely 1 kg of dried fruit would be beyond your budget or not considered essential ? Are there other (cheaper) ingredients that could be used ?
Pat – sounds yum, I love dates in cake
I am making this now with mixed fruit and dates.Topped it with 8 whole cherries
Great! Glad you liked it 🙂
Just made this and its delicious.
Coffee – ooh, wouldn’t have thought of that. I’ve got some raisins soaking atm in some juice from a tin of approved food oranges
I have been making this for years. I soak the fruit in a hot cup of coffee for 30 to 60 minutes, mix and bake. It makes a mocha fruit cake. Decaf works well too.
I still have lots in the tin and it is maturing nicely 🙂
Now that is an absolute bargain! Never thought of using tea. Love it!
Ooh, mulberries sounds good.
I made it and it is so easy and so good. Next time I am going to try using walnuts and some dried mulberries. A friend gave me a two pound package. I made granola with some of them and ate some but am going to try experimenting with the rest of them.
Brilliant, so now we know those proportions work too!
It worked out well! I put it in a silicone loaf pan, I should have sprayed first because it stuck a bit. But it worked well 🙂
I’m sure it could be made with gluten free flour. It rose more than I expected, so I would use the self raising kind
Miss piggy – There are lots of variations that appeal. Just dried apricots, with walnuts, and yes, maybe soaked in orange juice
Could this be made with gluten free flour?
Ooh I am definitely going to try this, thank you! Finding and measuring out lots of ingredients is hard for me, for various spoonie reasons, and this is much less intimidating. Thank you for the variation ideas – might try orange juice and tea…
Let me know what you try and how you get on 🙂
I think I remember seeing one post that put scoops in a muffin tin and baked them that way, but it had no temperature suggestion or timing
A 23cm tin makes a small mountain of cake!
I would go for a moderate heat, about 170c, and start testing at one hour
Fantastic! I am soaking 300 grams of fruit in 300 ml of orange juice. I ill add 1 cup flour. Ho long do you think I ill need to bake it for?
I love the look of this, thank you. I’ll reduce the amounts down quite a lot and give it a good go.
J x
This looks great. I plan to try this next week when I get home from my holiday, thank you
I was going to say Anna, I added some hazelnuts which worked well. Next time I think I would add walnuts. You could make lots of different tasting variations of it
Sorry! Missed the part where you talked about adding nuts!
Heading for the store right now to pick up currents. I have the rest of the ingredients. Do you think it would be okay to add some chopped nuts?