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  • Serves 8
  • Makes 1
  • 49 minutes
  • Difficulty Easy
  • 4 Ingredients

68 Comment

I have just made the easiest three-ingredient fruit sponge cake ever. It’s a recipe that has been floating around the internet for a little while, and enjoyed a resurgence when a mum posted her creation in an Aldi’s mums facebook group.

I first saw the recipe on the foodie blog, Love, Shoes and Cupcakes which combines a simple vanilla cake mix with a drained tin of fruit. The Aldi mum upped the ante, by adding a layer of custard in the centre of the cake – transforming a simple cake into a sublime dessert.

I used a Greens Vanilla butter cake mix for the base – but you can really use any kind of plain vanilla cake mix. I had a tin of pears in fruit juice in the cupboard so I used this as the fruit ingredient. You can really use any kind of fruit you want. Apple works beautifully, but you can even experiment with fruit salad or pineapple.

fruit sponge cake

No need for any butter, oil, milk, sugar, flour or anything else. This recipe is as simple as draining the tinned fruit really well and then mixing the fruit with the cake mix in a bowl. I added a dash of cinnamon to the mix, as I just love cinnamon with anything.

Add Custard For An Extra Treat

The custard is actually optional and the original recipe simply mixed the fruit and cake mix and then added this to a cake tin and baked. However, we’re big custard fans in our house and we often have a big bowl of homemade custard in the fridge (I use my thermomix to make my never-fail custard but you can just buy a thickened custard from the shops). I added half the cake and fruit mixture to the greased baking tin, then a layer of custard, followed by the rest of the cake mixture.

fruit sponge cake with custard and cinnamon

The only issue I found was that there wasn’t enough cake mix leftover to cover the cake so the finished result was more like a crumble rather than a fruit sponge cake. But it was still absolutely delicious – moist, custardy, cakey, fruity – just YUM!

Perhaps next time, I would use two boxes of cake mix instead, if I wanted to produce a more authentic fruit sponge cake.


Ingredients (serves 8 | makes 1 Cake)

  • 1 Box Vanilla or Butter Cake Mix
  • 1 Tin fruit, drained well
  • 1/2 Cup Vanilla Custard
  • Optional: Cinnamon

Method

  1. Chop and drain the tinned fruit (I used pear), and add some cinnamon to the fruit
  2. Fold fruit into cake mix
  3. Prepare a cake tin with baking spray. Add half the cake and fruit mix to the tin.
  4. Dollop a layer of custard on top.
  5. Add the rest of the batter on top. Sprinkle cinnamon on top.
  6. Bake at 160C (fan-forced oven) for 40 minutes.

  • I absolutely love simple recipes with little ingredients – these are the sort of meals that our children can help to create. Thanks for sharing.

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  • Really easy recipe something to keep in the archives

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  • This recipe is great and I love that it can be made so easily.

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  • Wow this is such a good recipe I will have to try this!! Thanks

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  • Reckon the kids could help with this one

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  • Wow. What a fabulous idea. I might try this with tinned peaches. Mmmmm

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  • Great idea to add the custard to keep it moist.

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  • sounds so easy. i might layer the pears in the middle for mine.

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  • Looks good ! I am going to have to give this a try

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  • Mmmm except it has a cake mix as the base. So it has loads of ingredients, not just 3.

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  • Wow so it still turned out to be a sponge cake even though there was no liquid in making it?

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  • A simple but tasty dessert!
    Thanks!

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  • Great idea and super easy.

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  • I made this last night and OMG it is delicious and retained its moisture. So simple it was a great hit! Thank you.

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  • Such a great idea especially for a last min cake need

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  • i absolutely love love love love this easy dessert idea and will have to give this cake a go looks very nice and yummy thanks for sharing your recipe

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  • Have to admit, I wasn’t keen on this recipe as I’m not a big fruit cake fan. It’s so not what I was expecting in a fruit cake tho. Just asking, do you mix the cake mix to box directions then add the fruit? Or just add the fruit to the packet of cake mix? Doesn’t really specify


    • Just the fruit and the cake mix is what I do. Its really nice. I even omit the custard and it works well too

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  • Thanks for sharing this recipe – so easy to do and yet such a treat.

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  • That does sound easy. I might even try it.

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  • just tried making this and it turned out fabulous and well received.

    Reply

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