White Fruit Cake

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cup sugar
• 1 cup sweet milk
• 2.5 cup flour
• 7 egg whites
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 450 g seeded raisins
• 450 g figs
• 450 g blanched almonds
• 115 g citron
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 cup grated coconut

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy — this takes 5–8 minutes by hand, 3–4 by machine. You're incorporating air into a fat matrix, which is the butter-creaming foundation of the cake's crumb. The friction and volume expansion is what gives you lift without relying entirely on eggs.

Alternate adding the milk and flour mixture to the creamed base. Whisk the baking powder into the flour first, then add the dry and wet ingredients in three additions each, mixing until just combined after each. This prevents overworking the gluten, which would tighten the crumb and make the cake tough.

Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks — they should hold sharp points and not slide when you tilt the bowl. Fold them in gently in two additions, using a spatula to cut down the centre and turn the bowl rather than stirring. The whites provide baking lift through trapped air and protein structure; rough mixing collapses that matrix.

Meanwhile, prepare the dried fruit. Chop the raisins, figs, blanched almonds, and citron into uneven pieces roughly the size of a pea — avoid fine mince, which muddles texture. Toss them in a tablespoon of the flour from your measured batch; this dusts their surface and prevents them sinking to the tin's bottom. Fold the fruit, lemon extract, and grated coconut into the batter last, moving as quickly and gently as you can.

Pour into a buttered and floured loaf tin or cake tin lined with parchment. Bake at 160°C for two hours. The cake will initially look set around the edges while the centre still jiggles — this is correct. You want the interior to reach about 95°C internally (use a probe thermometer if you have one) before the crust darkens further. If the top is browning too quickly past the first hour, drape loosely with parchment or foil. The slow oven prevents the exterior casing before the centre's crumb has set, which would trap steam and make it gummy.

Test with a skewer at 90 minutes; it should emerge with just a few crumb clings, not wet batter. Turn out onto a rack and cool completely before slicing. The dried-fruit will have softened into the cake structure, and the flavour will deepen over a day of resting.