Fruitcake for Mma Ramotswe: ReadCookEat challenge

"Fruitcake came to her mind unbidden - a large fruitcake rich in sultanas and candied peel: the sort of cake that would torment and tantalise those on a diet. But Mma Ramotswe was nether dieting nor planning to do so, and she welcomed the vision wholeheartedly. She had not had fruitcake for a long time, and the idea of a generous slice - or possibly even two slices - seemed very attractive... There were two ladies in Botswana who made good fruitcake, and Mma Potokwani was one of them" (Alexander McCall Smith, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon)

I love Mma Ramotswe, the founder of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, and admire this traditionally-built lady for being wise, kind and intelligent. I have read all the books in the series (except the very last one). I also enjoy numerous references to food and cooking in the books, and of course, Mma Potokwani's fruitcake features regularly.
A few years ago the flavours of the series were recreated in a cook book called Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook: Nourishment for the Traditionally Built. I have borrowed this book in the library in the past and enjoyed reading it.
My recipe for fruitcake has been inspired by the recipe from this book called Persuasive Fruit Cake which also appears on The Redbush tea company's site.

Fruitcake for Mma Ramotswe
Ingredients:
4 medium eggs
200g caster sugar
zest & juice of 1 orange
220g mixed dried fruit (dates, raisins & lemon peel)
2tbsp brandy
100g ground almonds
110g cornflour
3tsp baking powder
300g plain flour
200g butter, melted
1 teabag of Rooibos (I used Dragonfly Earl Grey Rooibos)
1tsp vanilla bean extract
1tsp essence of orange blossom water
icing sugar + 3tsp of orange blossom water for the icing + more icing sugar

Start by soaking the dried fruit in brandy and orange juice. Leave it for about 30 minutes. Beat the eggs with the caster sugar, add the zest of one orange, ground almonds, cornflour, flour, the contents of one rooibos teabag (discard the bag), vanilla and orange blossom water, mix well.
Add the fruit with all the juices and melted butter, and mix again.
Butter the cake tin (or use the cake release spray) and spoon the cake batter in (it will be quite thick), then place the tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Bake for an hour.
Once baked, decorate with simple icing made of the orange blossom water and icing sugar.
And sprinkle more icing sugar on top.
If you like your fruitcake sticky rather than crumbly, add more dried fruit.

"There are times when it is better to concentrate on the cake in one's mouth than contribute to a debate".

Have you read a book (and I don't mean a cook book) and felt inspired to recreate the dish or recipe mentioned in it? Every time I read an Inspector Montalbano book (and I have read all of them), I feel like running to the kitchen and starting cooking those fabulous Sicilian dishes like pasta with sardines or caponata. Salvo's house keeper Adelina cooks the most scrummy dishes for him, and it's a joy to read the descriptions of the local food through the series.

You don't have to "travel" far, just pick any Jane Austen's novel and explore what her characters had for dinner. Aren't you tempted to reconstruct Mrs Bennet's dinner for Bingley or try the rout cakes mentioned in Emma or negus served at the balls in Mansfield Park?

Chris from Cooking Around the World has kindly agreed to run a joint reading-cooking challenge with me. The idea is to choose a fiction book, either a world classic or modern fiction, and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

As Chris is the original author of the Cooking around the world linky, I am merely stating the rules for taking part in our joint linky.
Please add the badge to your post and link up back to Chris and me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email either of us with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).
The challenge will start on 1 April and will end on 30 April 2014.
I promise to Pin all blogs posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+.

If you would like to discover which book inspired Chris, visit his blog.

Looking forward to everyone's creations!

Mma Ramotswe's date & ginger cake

Mma Ramotswe always has a pot of redbush tea ready. Redbush tea is also known as Rooibos, and often when I enjoy my cup of rooibos, I think of my favourite traditionally built heroine and her love of tea and life in general.

This recipe is for her, and I hope Mma Ramotswe would have enjoyed sharing a cup of tea and a big slice of cake with me.

I have recently discovered a new tea: Charbrew Tropical Rooibos.

When you open the box, the aroma is overwhelmingly enticing. The teabags themselves are very pretty, and look like an essence of summer, with their splashes of colour.
Each teabag is actually a transparent tea pyramid which contains rooibos, apple pieces, orange peels, ginger, cinnamon, lemongrass, coconut rasps, pink pepper, cardamom, cornflower blossoms, red currants. It's like a whole tropical orchard in a cup.
The colour of tea is lovely too. It tastes wonderfully refreshing and aromatic. And don't worry about the pepper, it adds just a hint of heat without assaulting your tastebuds.
I can easily see it becoming my new favourite. Simply delightful.

Mma Ramotswe's Date & Ginger Cake

Ingredients

2 Charbrew Tropical Rooibos teabags
250g of dates, chopped
100g crystallised ginger, chopped
100g mixed fruit, chopped
1 standard mug of self-raising flour (about 200g)
1 mug of golden caster sugar
2 medium eggs
75g butter, melted
1tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder

First boil the water and pour over 2 Charbrew Tropical Rooibos teabags in a mug. Allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a big mixing bowl mix together chopped dates and ginger, mixed fruit, flour, sugar, eggs, melted butter, all spices and baking powder. Pour the mug of tepid tea (discard the teabags) in the mix and stir well.
Oil a tin, pour the mix in the tin. Place the tin in the oven and bake the cake for about an hour.
Once the cake is done (check with the wooden skewer), take the tin out of the oven and allow to cool before taking the cake out of the tin.

I used a cake ring for this cake, but I confess it was a bit of a struggle to take the cake out because of the sugared ginger, as it made the cake quite sticky. Next time I bake this cake I am going to use a standard springform tin to make it easier to take the cake out.

I used Natural Selection products for this cake: mixed fruit and dates come already chopped, which saves you time in the kitchen, very handy, and all the dried berries and fruit that I tried from Natural Selection are lush.

Decorate the cake with the icing sugar to your heart's content.

The cake itself was very moist, aromatic and lovely with a cup of tea. If you like, serve with a dollop of the Greek yogurt to add a sharp note to its sweetness.

I think my hero, Mma Ramotswe would approve.
"She had a taste for sugar, however, and this meant that a doughnut or a cake might follow the sandwich. She was a traditionally built lady, after all, and she did not have to worry about dress size, unlike those poor neurotic people who were always looking in the mirrors and thinking that they were too big. What was too big anyway? Who was to tell another person what size they should be? It was a form of dictatorship, by the thin, and she was not having any of it. If these thin people became any more insistent, then the more generously-sized people would just have to sit on them! Hah!"
(Morality for Beautiful Girls)

Zesty pleasures of a new Provamel yogurt (review)

Provamel's Botanical range has been joined by a new flavour: Orange and Redbush.

Adding botanical elements to the yogurts is not a totally novelty idea. Do you remember Plum range of baby yogurts that used added herbs? What was it called: Botanics? It is sadly unavailable anymore as apparently there wasn't enough demand for it.

It was a clever approach on Provamel's part to introduce a range that combines "a radical fusion of natural herbal remedies muddled with delicious fruits". I have read about this range with great interest. I love herbal teas and believe in the herbal remedies too.
I was quite curious to try a new yogurt and I wasn't disappointed.

This is an inspired fusion of flavours. The yogurt is very creamy, has a warm colour and a very refreshing taste. The main note is the zesty orange, followed by a more delicate taste of redbush tea.
Redbush also known as Rooibos is famous for its high level of antioxidants, and is packed full with vitamins and minerals.
This yogurt reminded me of the Muller Amore/Orange yogurt but it has an added appeal of the redbush tea.

Some of the soya-based products on the market are rather insipid or bland. Provamel proves that soya-based products can be tasty. This range is a good news to anyone who is lactose-intolerant or has an allergy to the cows' milk-based protein

Provamel's new Orange and Redbush flavour yogurt is now available at RRP of £1.55 from most of the health food shops, both independent and major.