What’s Cooking: Pound Cake with dried fruits

Sliced Fruit Cake (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)

Hi Everyone,

What’s Cooking is a series in which I share advice and answer questions you may have about food and cooking, but are too shy to ask.

Do you like pound cake (Guyanese sponge) with dried fruits like raisins and cherries? Do you get frustrated when you cut into the cake only to find that all the fruits have sunk to the bottom of the cake? No worries, we’ll remedy the situation in this edition of What’s Cooking.

Why do the fruits sink? There are some dried fruits that tend of have a light coating of vegetable oil that cause them to be slippery, therefore, as the cake rises during baking, they sink to the bottom. In the case of glazed cherries, they contain a lot of moisture and easily drop to the bottom of the cake as it rises. The trick is to dust the dried fruits in flour and fold them into the cake batter just before adding the pan to the oven. What? You tried that and it didn’t work? I’m not surprised; it has happened to me in the past. Here’s what I’ve figured out that works for me every time.

Just as how the ingredients for the cake