Caribbean Black Cake | BLOGMAS DAY 19

I love the Caribbean. I've never been, but I've come close. I visited Bermuda this year and absolutely loved it; the combination of British politeness and American friendliness really goes hand-in-hand. The food out there is so unique. For example, ever thought of having avocado and banana for breakfast??
This year I thought why not make something a little less traditional. I chose this Caribbean black cake because it makes me reminiscent of that wonderful place. The black cake originally comes from Trinidad where it stemmed from the British plum pudding, however the recipe has adapted to have rum and molasses (brown, burnt sugar) added, giving it its dark colouring.
When making this cake, I couldn't help but remember the awful hurricane disaster from Irma this year. I've decided to donate some money through Global Giving to help the cause. Since Christmas is all about giving and helping others, why not donate too? Or simply make this cake in memory of the losses from the terrible storm.

If you want to know some more about the black cake, this article here from The Washington Post was very interesting, and funny too.

Ingredients

150g prunes, pitted and chopped
300g sultanas and raisin
100g dried cherries
50ml cherry brandy
250g unsalted butter
250g dark muscovado sugar
3 eggs, beaten
250g self-raising flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp all-spice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 zest of an orange
1 zest of a lime
Apricot jam to glaze
Raisins to decorate

Method

OVERNIGHT PREPARATION

1. Put the prunes, raisins, sultanas and cherries in a bowl. Add the rum and cherry brandy, and soak for 48 hours. You could even be like the good Trinidadian cooks and soak for two weeks (see above article).

The dried cherries I use (quite hard to come across)

2. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees/150 degrees fan, and grease and line the bottom of a 9 inch deep cake tin with baking parchment.

3. In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and combine.

4. With a spoon, mix in the flour, cinnamon, all-spice, vanilla and orange and lime zest. Then add the fruit and juices and mix in thoroughly.

5. Put the mixture into a tin and bake for 30 minutes. Lower the heat to 150 degrees/ 130 fan and bake for 2 more hours. Mine only took 1 hours 30 because my oven is particularly hot. Just keep an eye on it and check with a skewer every so often. If it comes out clean, its done.

6. Cool in the tin slightly and then completely on a a wire rack. When cool, heat the apricot jam in a pan and glaze the top with a brush. Decorate with a few extra raisins.