Jamaican Black Cake

Charla’s Jamaican black cake uses a cooked dried-fruit mixture in a dark, spiced batter. Her selected version uses a ready flour blend, dairy-free butter and applesauce, with a grape-juice finishing spray and selected optional rum flavouring.

A springform pan is greased and lined with parchment, with a pencil tracing the removable base. Dried mixed fruit simmers with red grape juice and water in a saucepan, then cools. A food processor pulses it into a semi-purée with some pieces left, and it is set aside.

The flour blend, almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice, baking powder and pink salt are combined in a bowl. In another bowl, an electric whisk creams dairy-free butter and raw cane sugar. Applesauce, the fruit purée, ready browning sauce, almond essence and vanilla are whisked in by hand.

The dry mixture is whisked into the wet mixture a little at a time, followed by the selected optional chopped dried fruit. The batter is poured into the lined pan. A separate ovenproof bowl of water sits underneath it in the oven; foil covers the cake if it browns too much. A skewer checks the baked centre, with further covered baking if needed.

Warm water, red grape juice and selected optional rum flavouring are combined in a spray bottle and sprayed over the hot cake. It cools completely before unmoulding and removing the side parchment. Cling film wraps the cake; it is unwrapped for service, optionally sprayed again and sliced.