The Most Amazing Fruit and Nut cake

You may remember the Date, Carrot & Walnut cake that I baked recently.

A super easy tasty cake.

Well I have been experimenting a little with it ( I can't leave well enough alone!).

The last time I baked it I added LOTS more nuts and added Pistachios & it was really delicious.

Today I turned it into THE MOST AMAZING FRUIT AND NUT CAKE- no word of a lie!

I have this enduring memory of an amazing fruit and nut cake that my mother made for Christmas one year that was seemingly just nuts and fruit and was barely held together with cake batter.  I'm not sure where that recipe was from- maybe an old Vogue entertaining cook book? In any case it is a lovely food memory from our childhood kitchen that was always teeming with people and cooking activity at that time of year.  Music playing and mess all around. Happiness.

When I was last at the Organic grocer I picked up some gorgeous dried Turkish figs and some Cacao nibs. I had in mind adding them to my Date & Carrot cake to oomph things up a notch.

Today was the day.

It seems this cake can take all manner of things thrown at it or in it.

In the bowl it looked as if there was no batter at all but just a conglomeration of carrots, nuts and dried fruit.

And then after an hour this appeared........

We were *forced* to eat it hot straight out of the oven.

I know you understand........

THE MOST AMAZING FRUIT AND NUT CAKE:
As I said before this is a variation of my earlier published Date, Carrot and Walnut cake with the Fruit and nut part of the ingredient list amped up to eleven.
AMAZING, easy & totally delicious.
Hop to it people! It is outrageously delicious. The textures and flavours are complex, interesting and I am sure TOTALLY good for you!

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

1 cup chopped dates

3 grated carrots

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup whole walnuts
1 cup roughly chopped Brazil nuts
1 cup roughly chopped Turkish figs
1/4 cup Cacao nibs

2 eggs
3/4 cup oil

1 cup SR flour

3/4 cup raw sugar

1 tsp Bi carb

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp ginger powder

150g cream cheese

130g icing sugar

50g butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Zest & juice of a lemon

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 175C.

Place all ingredients in bowl & mix through.

Place into greased and lined 23cm springform tin. (I used a rectangular glass lasagne dish lined with baking paper this time as my tin was in the dishwasher- worked a treat) 

You may need to flatten ingredients down with a spatula.

Place in oven for an hour or until skewer comes out clean.

Let completely cool before spreading cream cheese frosting.(made by mixing icing sugar, cream cheese, butter, vanilla, lemon zest & juice together).

Or.......slice and eat immediately while still hot.

I watched a really great tv show about Mental Illness on iView last night presented by comedian Felicity Ward- Felicity's Mental Mission.
You can watch it here.
There was the most amazing heartfelt piece by Missy Higgins in it & she palyed a track she had written at 18years ofa ge to her friend who was suffering from Depression.
It reminded me of how much I loved her music and her voice.