When Queen Victoria gave royal assent to the Australian Constitution on 9 July 1900, our nation was created. 9 July is now recognised as Constitution Day.  To celebrate in style, the National Archives commissioned culinary legend Maggie Beer to prepare a Constitution Cake. 

Outback Chef was very proud to supply the bush fruits for this fabulous cake and the recipe is as follows, thanks to the National Archives of Australia for making this recipe available <http://www.naa.gov.au>

Constitution Cake recipe

375ml verjuice
180g davidson's plums (defrosted, sliced and seed removed)*
120g muntries (defrosted)*
120g quandongs (dried)
120g dried currants
60g almonds, whole
50g caster sugar
120g dark-brown sugar
180g unsalted butter, chopped
4 eggs
180g self-raising flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
120g candied mixed peel
finely grated rind of 1 lemon

nut paste
120g macadamia nuts
100g icing sugar
1 egg yolk

* Available from specialist native food suppliers.

Reconstitute dried quandongs by soaking in 375ml of verjuice and 50g caster sugar for 30 minutes, then boil for 5 minutes. Turn off, add currants, leave to soften for 1 hour. Drain and reserve syrup.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC and grease and line a 20cm round spring-form cake tin with baking paper.

Dry-roast 120g macadamia nuts and 60g almonds (keeping them separate) on a baking tray for 6–8 minutes, then set aside to cool. Reset the oven to 170ºC.

To make the nut paste, blend the roasted macadamias in a food processor, then add the icing sugar and egg yolk and pulse to form a stiff paste. Set aside.

In the cake mixer, cream the brown sugar and butter until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour if the mixture curdles.

Fold in the flour, spices, currants, quandongs, sliced davidson's plums (seed removed), whole muntries, almonds and candied peel. Stir in the grated lemon zest and the reserved syrup, to give a soft batter.

Spoon half the batter into the prepared tin, then spread the nut paste over the mixture and top it with the remaining batter.

Bake for 2.5 hours (or until a fine skewer comes out clean). If the top colours too quickly, cover with foil for the last hour. Leave the cake to cool a little in the tin before turning it out.

"I was thrilled to be asked to make a cake for this exciting day and immediately thought to bring as much history into the recipe as I could.

For many reasons it had to be fruit cake, but something very different and special. It's a cake that gets better with age, as long as it's been made with the best of ingredients and cooked with love.

This recipe marries the rich Aboriginal food culture so few Australians know much about with that of our first settlers.

Davidson plums, a native plum with great colour and flavour and quandongs, so revered by our Aboriginal community, add a defining taste to the cake. Muntries too, a berry hardly used. And, of course, I had to use macadamia, that king of all nuts we should be proud of being native to Australia. In recognition of the mix of cultures in Australia, currants and almonds are included.

The final recipe, I hope, shows the depth of our food culture with a footnote to the wealth of flavour to be found in our native ingredients that are truly unique."

Maggie Beer
9 July 2010