Stained-Glass Cake

2 c Plain flour

2 ts Baking powder

500 g Glace pineapple

100 g Glace pear

100 g Glace kiwi fruit

100 g Glace apple

100 Glace apricot

250 Glace cherries

250 g Sultanas

250 g Currants

4 Eggs

2/3 c Brown sugar

250 g Halved blanched almonds

250 g Halved pecan nuts

250 g Halved macadamia ants

250 Halved Brazil nuts

1/2 c Grand Marnier or Cointreau.

From the traditional to the (comparatively) new-fangled. Stained glass or bishopcakes, very popular in the US, are so called, one presumes, because they consist almost entirely of glace fruit and nuts, and the glace fruit has something of the translucency of a stained-glass church window. [This is news to me. I`ve never heard either of the two terms applied to fruit cakes. Other terms, maybe, but not those... S.C.] Butter a round 23 an cake tin and line with grease proof paper. Butter the grease proof. Chop the glace fruits roughly. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Mix in all the fruits, together with the nuts. Put the mixture into the cake tin, wet hands and press mixture down firmly. Bake in a preheated 150C oven for 1 1/2 hours. Take cake out of the oven and drizzle the Grand Marnier or Cointreau over the top. Leave the cake in the oven to cool to warm then wrap it, tin and all, in aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight. Remove from tin, peel away paper and store in airtight tin. From "Raw Materials" by Meryl Constance, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/8/92.

Posted by Stephen Ceideberg; February 18 1993.