Well the Great British Bake Off has kicked off with a firm favourite, Cake Week! So I thought I’d share with you my go-to cake, a Semi-rich fruit cake which my brother and I basically grew up on as our Mum made this throughout our childhood. I think the original recipe came from the side of a Stork tub in the 1980s, but over the years we’ve switched to butter and I’ve converted the recipe from Imperial to Metric – times change, but the cake has basically stayed the same!

It’s the kind of cake which anyone cake make, just throw all of the ingredients in a bowl, mix together and tip into a tin. There’s no creaming butter and sugar, separating eggs or anything thing like that. Plus it freezes really well so you can make a batch of them ready to enjoy at a later date. Have a go and let me know what you think!

Ingredients

140g unsalted butter

140g caster sugar (or whatever sugar you have, you seem to be able to use granulated, brown…)

125ml milk

1 egg

250g dried fruit (use whatever you fancy, I like to avoid peel – yuck- and always like to include a few cherries)

230g self-raising flour

1 tsp mixed spice, optional

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/ fan 140C. Prepare a 2lb/ 900g loaf tin with butter and greaseproof paper.
2. Weigh out all of the ingredients into 1 big bowl and mix well until everything in incorporated.
3. Transfer your mixture into the tin an bake for 1 hour 30 mins – 1 hour 45 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.

I hope you enjoy this cake, if you feel like trying something new in the kitchen, why not join us for one of our upcoming baking classes – details here.