Fruit-cake lollies dipped in white chocolate by Leopard’s Leap Family Vineyards
INGREDIENTS
This recipe makes one 28 cm round fruit cake. Use a part of the cake to make the fun festive lollies or if you are catering for a proper party, use the whole cake – it makes 70 lollies! Once covered in chocolate, the cake keeps in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 weeks. Without the chocolate it continues to ripen as a proper fruit cake does. Please keep in an airtight container to prevent it from drying out.
Fruit mixture
- 125 g dates, finely chopped
- 50 g dried apricots, cut in quarters
- 50 g raisins
- 50 g sultanas
- 25 g currants
- 50 g candied citrus, finely chopped
- 85 g ginger in syrup, drained and finely chopped
- 250 g green fig in syrup, drained and chopped
- 250 g glacé cherries
- 60 ml Leopard’s Leap Culinaria Muscat de Frontignan
Cake batter
- 125 g butter, soft
- 190 ml castor sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2.5 ml vanilla essence
- 250 ml cake-flour
- 1.25 ml salt
- 250 g pecan nuts, roughly chopped
- 60 – 125 ml Leopard’s Leap Culinaria Muscat de Frontignan
- 300 g white chocolate
- 70 lollipop sticks
METHOD
- Mix the fruit in a mixing bowl and pour the Leopard’s Leap Culinaria Muscat de Frontignan over the fruit. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to steep overnight.
- Pre-heat oven to 180 °C. Line a deep cake-tin (28 cm in diameter) with four layers of baking paper.
- In a mixing bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, then beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla essence. Add a teaspoon of cake-flour to the mixture if it looks curdled.
- Sift together the flour and salt and mix into the butter mixture until smooth. Fold in the prepared fruit mixture and scrape the batter in the prepared cake-tin. Place a double layer of baking paper on top of the cake. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour.
- When cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes in the baking tin. Sprinkle half of the Leopard’s Leap Culinaria Muscat de Frontignan over the cake. Turn the cake onto a wire rack and sprinkle the bottom with the remaining half of the Leopard’s Leap Culinaria Muscat de Frontignan. Allow the cake to cool completely.
- When cooled, break off pieces of cake (roughly 20 g each), lightly press together and roll into a ball.
- Melt white chocolate over a double boiler, then dip the lollipop sticks in the melted chocolate. Insert the sticks into the cake balls. Place the cake balls in the fridge to firm up – this makes it easier to dip.
- Dip the cake lollies in the melted chocolate, swirling to get rid of drips, and place them sticks-up on a waxed paper or parchment-lined sheet. Place in the fridge and allow the chocolate to set.
