Bier, Bundt und Butter

Fanny is decidedly determined to include a Deutchsland cake in her Christmas tea-time treats, in honour of Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria. Fanny says this is only right as 'they', being the Royals, the Germans, the Saxe Coburgs, 'brought Christmas to our Island' and without them we would have very different Christmas traditions. The Christmas Beer Cake, or Bierkuche, doesn't seem to have become a firm favourite for Brits, but we do seem to have adopted the entire month of Oktober to celebrate German ales so perhaps it is appropriate after all? It's another cake, or perhaps a sweet bread - she can't decide - which Fanny says improves with age, and yet again one which will have your waistline twitching in preparation for the winter ahead. Fanny insists its made in a ring shaped tin, for Germanic tradition presumably and not as an homage to Prince Alberts most famous piece of jewellery? Anything is possible with Fanny though, and she may have her tongue tucked firmly in her cheek with this one.

The flavours are full-on festive, packed with spice - cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves - all mixed in with a deep, dark German Ale. I'm using Erdinger Dunkel simply because I like it, but Fanny recommends using 'any old ale'. She mixes up her measurements for this one, using oz's for flour and butter and the more American-preferred 'cups' for the Black Treacle and Raisins. I'm working on the conversion of 1 cup to be 8 oz, so let's keep our fingers crossed! Fanny from time to time in other recipes specifies teacups, or breakfast cups, but for this one it's just 'cups'. 

This cake, or sweet bread, starts with the beer being gently heated with some butter and Black Treacle, quite a lot of treacle, until the butter melts. Off the heat, it's time to add the raisins and leave it to cool down to 'blood temperature' for all that lovely stuff to fatten up the fruit. Meanwhile the self-raising flour (remember Fanny never uses anything else!) is sifted with an incredible three teaspoons of baking powder, some salt and the spices. There are no eggs in this cake/bread at all, so presumably all that baking powder is required to lift it?

Fanny insists I butter and flour my Bundt in preparation of the mix. I tend not to use my Bundt tin all that much for fear of the cake getting stuck, but Fanny hasn't let me down so far. The chubby and now blood temperature raisin, beer, butter and treacle mix is folded into the sifted flour and spices with some chopped walnuts before transferring to the floured tin. No looking back. All that baking powder is making it rise up even before it goes into the oven. It bakes for a whopping 50 minutes, but does turn out fantastically well! Phew! The finished cake/bread or whatever it is tastes so wintery. Fanny says there is nothing else to do for the cold season than to cut yourself a huge fat wedge, slap some butter thickly on it, pour yourself a hearty foaming beer, sit back and put weight on. Who am I to disagree with Fanny? Winter waistline here I come - prost! 

I've entered this blogpost into #CookBlogShare hosted by the very lovely Lucy over at SuperGoldenBakes