Make Your Own Fruit Cake Base – Airy, Moist & Easy

Preheat your oven to 180 °C top/bottom heat.

Put the whole egg, granulated sugar and vanilla sugar into a Mixing bowl. Whip the mixture with a Hand mixer or stand mixer for 2–3 minutes on the highest setting until it becomes noticeably lighter and more voluminous. This airiness is important for a nicely light base.

Add the sunflower oil and whole milk to the egg mixture and briefly stir them in on a low setting until everything is evenly combined. Don't stir for too long, otherwise the mixture will lose its airiness.

In a separate Bowl, mix the flour, the Baking powder and the salt. Add this mixture to the wet mixture and gently fold it in with a Rubber scraper, only briefly – a few, gentle movements are enough. Stirring too long makes the batter tough rather than light.

Spray the fruit Cake tin with Non-stick spray and then dust it evenly with a little flour. This way the cake comes out of the tin effortlessly later, and the characteristic hollow stays nicely intact.

Fill the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the surface with the Rubber scraper or a Spreading palette so that it rises evenly. Bake the base for about 25 minutes in the preheated oven. Towards the end of the baking time, do the skewer test: if you insert a wooden skewer into the centre and it comes out clean, the base is done.

Let the base cool briefly in the tin before turning it out. Turn it so that the characteristic hollow faces up – it later forms the perfect base for the vanilla cream.

Put the Custard cream Mix and the water together into a Mixing bowl. Whip both with the Hand mixer for about 5 minutes until the cream reaches a smooth, spreadable consistency. Spread the finished cream evenly over the cooled, turned-out cake base, using the hollow as a natural border.

Arrange the chopped fruit decoratively on the vanilla cream. Aim for a nice mix of colours and place the larger pieces first, then the smaller ones in between.

Warm the Cake glaze together with the water in a small pan over low heat until it is liquid. Brush the fruit evenly with the warm glaze using a silicone brush until it is nicely shiny and protected.