Boiled fruit cake

Ever since reading Alison's - of Dragons and Fairy Dust fame - post about a boiled fruit cake, I fancied trying the recipe myself. Her cake is a delightful tea treat.
I have also liked the sound of a tea soaked fruit cake found on National Trust site. My cake is an interpretation and amalgamation of two recipes.
Recently I have being playing with Clipper Extra Strong tea, making both hot and iced tea, and I wanted to bake a cake with fruit soaked in strong tea.

Boiled fruit cake
Ingredients:
2 strong black tea teabags
200ml water
360g mixed fruit (sultanas, raisins and dried apricots)
3 medium eggs
160g demerara sugar
200g margarine (e.g. Flora)
1tbsp mixed spice
360g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsbp spiced rum

Pour hot boiling water over 2 teabags in a big mug, cover and let it steep for 10 minutes. Remove the teabags and discard them. Put the raisins, sultanas and finely chopped apricots in a medium sized pan and pour the tea over the fruit. Bring to boil, then lower the heat, keep cooking for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Turn off the heat, cover the pan and leave the fruit to infuse for two hours, or more if you have time.
This plumps up the dried fruit.

In a big mixing bowl beat the eggs with the sugar, one at a time. Add the margarine and mix well. Sift in the flour, spice mix and baking powder, and mix well together. Finally add the soaked fruit and a spoon of rum (optional) to the cake mix, combine all the ingredients together.
Line the cake spring tin with a foil or parchment paper and lightly oil it.

Pour the cake batter into the tin. Place the tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for 50-60 minutes.
Check readiness with a wooden toothpick. You might want to cover the cake with more foil, half-way through cooking, if it gets too browned.

It is a crumbly moist cake, lovely with a cup of tea.

In this recipe I used Clipper Extra Strong tea, but any good quality black tea, plain or flavoured, would work.

Mixed spice that I used is Waitrose Signature Spice which I bought around Christmas time. It is a mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, star anise, black pepper, tangerine oil and cloves. You can use any similar mixed spice or make your own from spices you have.

Since I have finished the bag of sultanas, bought for making mincemeat last year as well as the remains of the demerara sugar, I'm adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews.