I am needing to find a good recipe for a traditional Australian Christmas fruit cake for a 10" tier of a wedding cake. I have a bride from Australia that is coming to Wyoming to get married. The recipes I have found indicate that each 10" cake will weigh about 9 pounds! Can this be right? I have searched the forums here for information but have not found anything. If any of you have a tried and true traditional recipe appropriate for a wedding cake, please share it with me! Any input would be greatly appreciated! TIA!

I dont know the qty you would need to make a 10" cake from the recipe I use cause when I make my fruit cakes I just make up a large batch and do most of it by eye but I have found this which may help you.

http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Britain/Food/Cooking/FruitCake.htm

I assume that and English fruit cake is the same as an Australian one.

Karen - Thank you! How full do you fill the pans? Do they rise much? This looks like a great recipe.

A fruit cake does not rise up very much at all. When I make mine in a 3" deep cake tin I usually fill the tin to about 2 1/2".
Also dont worry about the gravy browning I dont put that in mine (Its only to make the cake a darker colour) and reading it again one other change that I would do is I dont use caster sugar and Muscovado I just use a dark brown suger for the full amount and this will make a nice dark cake. If you can not get the black treacle again this is no big deal just another thing to make the cake darker in colour.

Just thought I had better add that if you are using this cake as a tier to a wedding cake then it HAS to be the bottom tier.
Under no circumstances put this cake on top of a sponge cake.

A wedding cake is very rich: this one http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/11889/normas+rich+fruit+cake is a good traditional one ...

The undressed cake will be over 10lb - add the rolled fondant, another 4-5lb, and the cake will be heavy ..

Hi Freckleysmom, I'm from the UK and got married last year, I used this recipe from Delia Smith for my 3 tier wedding cake and had great feedback from everyone! HTH.

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/scaling-up-recipes.html

Forgot to say I also use this recipe for my Christmas cakes that I make for family and friends - and get asked every Christmas for a repeat!! But as Cake_Karen says if you are making any of the tiers out of sponge etc. make sure that the bottom tier is the fruit cake - as they are heavy in weight. I had all 3 tiers of my wedding cake made from this recipe, but made sure that I placed dowels in the bottom 2 tiers.