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Nana’s Easy Three Ingredient Orange Fruit Cake

Nana’s Easy Three Ingredient Orange Fruit Cake

Jun 06, 2025

Nana (Great-great Grandma) didn't have much money and one of the ways she liked to help Mum Great Grandma was by baking. She was an incredible baker and our tins were always full. This cake is one that I remember her making from when I was little.

This has to be the easiest fruit cake recipe there is. It produces a lovely moist, tasty fruit cake that keeps well in a cake tin. It is a great recipe to use when teaching children to bake. 

Ingredients

  • 1 cup orange juice
  • 500gm mixed fruit
  • 1 cup SR Flour

Method

  1. Soak mixed fruit in orange juice overnight.
  2. Next day add the flour
  3. Mix well
  4. Put into a well-greased cake or loaf tin
  5. Cook at 140C for 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours
  6. Cool in tin

Variations

  • We had some left over homemade Christmas mincemeat. We added 100gm of the mincemeat and reduced the mixed fruit to 400gms. We were told it was the best fruit cake we had ever made!
  • Change orange juice for: Tangelo, Kiyomi, Kawano, Uglifruit or Star Ruby grapefruit juice.
  • Instead of using a bought packet of mixed fruit, as Nana used to do, use a mixture of any dried fruit. We like to use raisins, sultanas, cranberries, currents and homemade dried mixed peel.