SPICED PUMPKIN AND MINCEMEAT CAKE

My birthday is in December and the weather is usually grim.  This is in sharp contrast to my OH's birthday which is in November when the weather is nearly always much nicer.  Usually good enough to enjoy a walk in the countryside or, like this year, a barbecue in the sunshine.  On his birthday we barbecued salmon fillets and veg skewers for a late lunch and sat outside in the evening to enjoy a glass of fizz until the sun went down.  Just four weeks and two days later, on my birthday, it was grey, misty and miserable outside and definitely not sitting out weather.

In the year of my 70th birthday we had a 69¾ garden party three months early, in September, when it was still warm and sunny.  I'm thinking of permanently adopting an official birthday in September every year from now on!

So, what do you do when it's a grim and miserable day outside but you want to do SOMETHING nice to celebrate?  (Other than join the crowds and mayhem and go shopping.)  You bake a birthday cake!

I've owned this Nordic Ware tin for a few years but so far shied away from actually using it, thinking that the cake would be bound to stick with all those tiny little nooks and crannies.  It took as long to brush it with cake release paste as it did to make the cake mixture but when the cake plopped out of the tin as clean as a whistle it was definitely worth the effort!  The design of the tin would make a good alternative Christmas cake.  Nordic Ware now make something similar in a loaf shape as well as the traditional ring.

I adapted a recipe I have used many times before, one that always turns out well.  I used my last tin of pumpkin purée from the larder and the two spoonfuls of the home made mincemeat left over from making mince pies.  It’s a while since I baked a Bundt cake and I forgot the golden rule of only filling the tin to about three quarters full.  I merrily spooned in all the mixture and it volcanoed up almost over the top.  This can make it harder to turn out but on this occasion I got away with it!  It’s better to under fill the tin and use the excess mixture for a few muffins or fairy cakes.

This time the cake looked spectacular, was beautifully moist and spiced and tasted divine.  The sprinkling of icing sugar "snow" topped it off perfectly.  Our guests were sceptical about pumpkin but I just said "think carrot cake" and they all loved it, even taking away slices for later.  A true endorsement of a delicious cake.

All ready for a Christmas gathering chez nous.

Did you know that the term "Bundt" comes from the German word for a gathering of people, a bund?  The hole in the middle of the tin allows for even baking of a large cake to serve a lot of people at a gathering or party.  Nordic Ware and other manufacturers produce dozens of different designs of Bundt tin to suit every occasion and, although they are not cheap, they are very strong and high quality.  I'm lucky enough to have a small collection of them acquired over many years.  

Another cake made for a New Year party.

Ingredients

200g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

250g soft dark brown sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

190ml sunflower oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 400g tin pumpkin purée

2 tblsp mincemeat

Method

Carefully brush cake release paste into all the crevices of a Bundt tin*.  (See recipe here.)  Preheat the oven to 175°C / 155° fan.

Sift the flour into a bowl, add the baking powder, bicarb, salt and cinnamon and mix well.

In a large bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla and pumpkin until well mixed.  Stir in the mincemeat.

Tip the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients and mix well, making sure everything is well incorporated.  

Spoon the mixture into the Bundt tin, level the top and tap on the worktop a few times to dispel any air bubbles.   

Bake for 40-45 minutes until done.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Transfer to a cake plate or stand and dust lightly with icing sugar.

Cuts into 12-16 slices.

*If you prefer, use a 25cm round springform tin, greased and base lined with baking paper. 

EMERGENCY MINCEMEAT

I had an urge to bake some mince pies, something you never see here in France except amongst the British ex-pats.  The French don't understand them, you certainly never see them in the shops and jars of mincemeat are virtually impossible to find unless very occasionally on the "English shelf" in some supermarkets (at an outrageous price).  Another ingredient hard to find is suet, or at least not in the form that we know it.  You can get lumps of fat to grate yourself from the butcher if you ask in advance!  (Or do what most ex-pats do and bring it back from visits to the UK!)

The urgent need was spurred on by the discovery of a set of Christmas cake decoration cutters in the bottom of a drawer, a rogue purchase from many years ago that had never been used.  Perfect for the pastry tops of mince pies as well as fondant icing!

So I looked for a recipe that I could adapt using what I had in stock.  You can buy delicious candied peel here but all of mine had gone into the Christmas cake so I used the zest of two clementines instead.  For the alcohol content I used Armagnac which we had bought to "water" the Christmas cake, not being brandy drinkers ourselves.

I adapted Mary Berry's recipe which you can see here which neatly makes four regular sized jam jars of mincemeat which will keep for several months.  It improves with keeping but some went into the pies straight away which were delicious and satisfied the urgent need for them!

Ingredients 

175g each of

    currants

    raisins

    sultanas

    dried cranberries

100g mixed peel or the zest of 1 small orange/2 clementines instead 

1 small apple peeled and finely chopped

50g chopped almonds

225g light muscovado sugar (or other brown sugar)

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

zest and juice of 1 lemon

125g butter, cubed or sliced

200ml brandy, rum, sherry or Armagnac

Method 

Put all of the ingredients except for the alcohol into a large saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted.  Simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring frequently so it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely before stirring in the alcohol.

While the mincemeat is cooking then cooling sterilise your jars.  Wash the jars and lids then rinse well in hot water, shaking off the water rather than using a tea towel.  Place onto a baking sheet then into the oven  set to 160°C and leave for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and fill with the mincemeat while the jars are still warm.

Makes 4 jars of mincemeat which will keep for several months.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and the recipe round up for 2024.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Here's the recipe round up for 2024.

Cakes and bakes : 9

Soups : 4

Savouries : 12

Desserts : 4

With just four of us for Christmas lunch this year we decided to roast two small chickens.

That way we all get a leg each!

Also, plenty left over for Christmas dinner pie on Boxing Day!

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND ALL THE BEST FOR 2025!

 

BRAISED RED CABBAGE

It's years since I cooked a red cabbage.  Nick is not keen because he sometimes finds them too vinegary so I don't bother just for myself.   However, it was by now December, Christmas is not that far around the corner so I thought "why not" and decided to give it a go.  Then I started looking for recipes.

A lot of recipes had apple in the ingredients.  I didn't have any apples so carried on looking and found this recipe which didn't include apple and also looked very straightforward.  You simply put everything into a large saucepan and cook it on the hob for a very long time.  No need for sweating the onions separately.  

The recipe uses cider vinegar which  I didn't have so I used the sweetened vinegar called Melfor which I thought might do instead.  Also, in a nod to all those recipes that do include apple I added a couple of tablespoons of the apple compote that contains chunks of apple for the last few minutes of cooking.  (We have it on our cereals and porridge so get through a lot of it.)  Both added to the sweetness I think and it was very tasty.  Everyone had seconds including Nick so it will definitely be on the menu this Christmas.

Ingredients

1 small or ½ a large red cabbage (roughly 900g)

1 large red onion

70g soft light brown sugar

70m cider vinegar or similar

150ml red wine

1 large knob of butter

1 cinnamon stick

2 tblsp apple compote or apple sauce (optional)

Method

Trim the cabbage, remove the core and shred finely.

Peel and thinly slice the onion.

Put all of the ingredients (except for the apple compote) into a very large saucepan and season with salt and pepper.

Heat gently until simmering, stirring often.  Turn the heat right down, cover and simmer gently for 1 hour and 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick or burn on the bottom of the pan.  Remove the lid and simmer for another 30 minutes or until the cabbage is nice and tender.  Stir regularly throughout the cooking time.

If using the apple, stir in just before serving and leave on the hob for a few minutes to make sure it's warmed through.  Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.  Serve hot.

This can be made one or two days before needed.  Keep in the fridge and reheat either on the hob or in the microwave until piping hot.

Serves 6-8, depending on how much you like red cabbage!

BEEF CANNELLONI

We have really enjoyed the most recent TV series by Mary Berry called "Mary makes it easy".  Her guests were all sweetie-pies too and the dishes she cooked all looked very "tempting" - a word she uses herself frequently.  

She’s such a good teacher, scattering useful little hints and tips here and there like sprinkles on a trifle and above all her recipes do work!   She really is a national treasure.  I could happily cook most of them from this series and the book is on my Christmas wish list. 

We are now back in the UK for Christmas.  We had invited a couple of  friends round for dinner a few days before we left France as we won't see them again for a while.  I had planned to serve this cannelloni.  Sadly, one them developed a bad cold and they cancelled, which was very considerate, as for us to catch it before travelling back would have spoiled our Christmas.

However, I had bought a pack of cannelloni tubes and the other ingredients and we were very keen to give the recipe a go.  So I scaled it down for just the two of us and it was delicious!  Another winner from the marvellous Mary Berry and destined to become a family favourite.  The quantity I made would have easily served three but we scoffed the lot between us.  It will be on our table on Christmas Eve as that’s how many of us there will be this year, just us and my brother.  Thank you Mary!

You can see the recipe here.  I didn't have any fresh herbs available but dried herbs worked fine.  This is how I adapted it for two (really three) servings:

Ingredients

8 cannelloni pasta tubes (or the right number to make a single layer in your dish)

1 ball mozzarella, sliced

30g grated parmesan cheese (I used the ready grated packet cheese)

a splash of olive oil for frying

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and grated or finely chopped

200g low fat minced beef

1 tblsp plain flour

150 ml beef stock, made with half of a stock cube

a splash of Worcestershire sauce

2 tblsp tomato purée

2 tsp dried thyme

For the sauce

a splash of olive oil for frying

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, grated or chopped

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

a squeeze of tomato purée

a pinch of sugar if needed

2 tsp dried basil

Method

To make the beef filling for the tubes, fry the onion in hot oil until softened then add the garlic and mince.  Fry until browned.

Sprinkle over the flour, add the stock, W sauce, thyme and tomato purée and stir until well mixed.  Cover and leave to simmer for about 30 minutes while you make the sauce.  Add a splash of water if it looks a bit too thick or solid.  Once cooked set aside to cool.

For the sauce, heat the oil in a saucepan and fry the onion until soft.  Add the garlic and fry briefly before adding the chopped tomatoes and purée.  Add 100ml water (rinsing out the tomato tin) and season with salt and pepper.

Stir well, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Taste the sauce and add the sugar if it seems too sharp.  Stir in the basil.

Preheat the oven to 200C / 180 fan / gas mk6.

Put roughly a third of the sauce in the bottom of your ovenproof dish.

Using a teaspoon, fill each pasta tube with the cooled beef mixture and arrange them in a single layer on top of the sauce.  Spoon the remaining sauce evenly over the top.  Scatter the slices of mozzarella and the parmesan over the sauce and cook in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the cheese has melted and browned and the pasta tubes are soft.

Serve immediately with a nice green salad.

Serves 3 (or 2 very greedy/hungry people).

PARMESAN BISCUITS (canapé size)

I recently spent a happy half hour (or more) leafing through my cook books for recipes for nibbles.  We had friends coming for lunch and I found myself with the luxury of time on my hands that would enable me to do more than just spread some paté on bits of toast or put olives in a dish.

I found a Nigella Lawson recipe that I liked the look of and with all the ingredients to hand thought it worth a try.  The recipe makes a bowl full of little cheesy biscuits for now and enough mixture to freeze half of it for later.  Always a good idea in my book!

Very easy to do, delicious and highly recommended.

And then there were three!

Ingredients

150g plain flour

75g grated parmesan (I used the ready grated kind as that's what I had in)

100g butter, softened

1 egg yolk

Method

Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together using an electric hand mixer until it comes together in a large clump.

Transfer to a work surface and knead briefly until smooth.  Divide roughly into equal halves.

Take one half and roll it into a log then an even cylinder about 3cm diameter, with nice flat ends.  Wrap in cling film, twist the ends to secure and chill for at least 45 minutes or until needed, by which time it should be firm enough to slice easily. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan / gas mk4.

Unwrap one or both cylinders and slice neatly and evenly into discs about 1cm thick.  I got 20 discs from my first one (the second is in the freezer).  Some of my discs looked rather irregular in shape but miraculously turned into nice neat circles when cooked.

Arrange on a baking sheet lined with baking paper (one sheet for each cyslinder) and cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes until a pale golden brown (depending on how thick the discs are).

Makes about 20 biscuits per log.  Store in an airtight tin or box (if there are any left!).

QUEEN OF PUDDINGS

This is a Delia Smith recipe for six individual puddings which requires six small glass ovenproof dishes or large ramekins.  I had some white ceramic ramekins of the right size but spotted some glass dishes that would do the job in a local supermarket.  The nice thing about glass dishes is that you can see the layers!

They are actually mini mixing bowls but they had the word "tempered" engraved on the bottom which to me suggested they were ovenproof, like Pyrex.  The lady on the checkout didn’t know and was clearly puzzled why I needed to know.  I bought one and took it home to try it in the oven.  It was fine so I went back for another five, leaving the same checkout lady convinced that the English are completely bonkers!

I made them for friends who came to lunch the other day and they were an enormous hit, evoking fond memories of home baking and school dinners.  Most of us hadn’t had anything like it for decades and it sparked a lively conversation!

They were easy enough to make although the timing was tricky.  I made the base of egg mixture and jam the day before, the kitchen being cool enough overnight without having to find space for them in the fridge.  I got the egg whites ready in a bowl and sugar measured out before the gang arrived,  whisked up the meringue and baked them when the main course came out of the oven.  

They were still nice and warm when we ate them.  Delicious!  (Because there are several steps and you have to think about the timing I have given the recipe two stars in terms of how fiddly it is!)

It has occurred to me that these puddings would make a nice alternative to Christmas pudding!  You could make the breadcrumb base on Christmas Eve and finish off on the big day.

(I have posted about Queen of puddings before, a completely different recipe, that you can see here.)

Ingredients

1 pint of milk

10g butter

110g fresh white breadcrumbs

100g caster sugar (plus a little extra for sprinkling)

1 lemon (zest only)

3 large eggs, separated

6 dessertspoons, or about half a jar, of cherry jam (or any other red jam of your choice)

Method

Butter six suitable ovenproof dishes, whether ceramic or glass.

Put the milk into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil.  Remove from the heat.

To make the breadcrumbs, weigh slices of bread to make 110g and blitz in a food processor.  

Stir the butter, breadcrumbs, 60g of the sugar and the lemon zest into the hot milk.  Set aside for about 20 minutes to allow the breadcrumbs to swell.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan / gas mk4.

Put the whites on one side in a grease free bowl or container.  Beat the yolks and whisk them into the breadcrumb mixture.

Divide the mixture between the six dishes and bake on a baking tray for about 25 minutes until set.

At this stage you can either proceed and finish the puddings or set aside until nearer the time when you want to serve them, or overnight.

Spread a layer of jam over the breadcrumb mixture, heating the jam to make it more spreadable if necessary.

Preheat the oven as before.  

Add the remaining 40g sugar to the egg whites and use an electric hand whisk to beat them to stiff peaks.  Pile this evenly on the puddings, making sure you spread out to the edges of each dish and creating little peaks.  Sprinkle with a little extra caster sugar.

Return the tray of puddings to the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes until the meringues are golden brown.

Serve hot or just warm.  Leftovers kept in the fridge are also nice cold.

Makes 6 individual puddings.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL !!

(No Christmas cake this year.)

CHRISTMAS LEFTOVERS

 

Just in case you STILL have some turkey leftover, this is what we do each year with ours.

 

 

This year I made a version of our traditional Christmas Dinner Pie (which you can see here) using leftover potatoes instead of pastry as a topping.

All you do is to put all the Christmas dinner leftovers, including shredded turkey, sprouts, carrots, stuffing, bread sauce, parsnips, pigs in blankets - everything in fact - into a suitable sized dish.  Pour over the leftover gravy or make more if needed.  Top with sliced potatoes and spray those with oil spray (or brush with melted butter).  Bake for 30 minutes at 180 fan until the potatoes are browned and the filling is bubbling around the edges.  Delicious !!  We enjoyed ours on Boxing Day but many of the leftovers will keep for a day or two longer in the fridge before you have to use them up.

 

 

The next day I used my recently discovered risotto recipe to make a turkey, leek and pea risotto.  I used this recipe here but I used chunks of turkey (including the last couple of pigs in blankets that had amazingly escaped discovery in the fridge) and chicken stock (Oxo cube) instead of the smoked haddock and fish stock. I replaced the spinach with frozen peas, adding them with the turkey before the risotto went in the oven. 
The recipe serves 4 people so I simply halved the quantities to make a satisfying dinner for the two of us.  It was scrumptious!

We still have a little turkey left which is still good so for tonight's dinner we will probably have a turkey, leek and mushroom pie with a pastry lid.  There will be sprouts (fresh ones!) and carrots to go with it and almost certainly reheated leftover Christmas pudding with custard and home made brandy butter to follow.  Long gone are the days when I threw out the remaining turkey when I ran out of ideas to use it up.  Nowadays leftovers are one of the best parts of Christmas for me!

FRESH PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

 

It's not that long since I made my first upside down cake, only about forty years since they were fashionable!

More recently I found myself with a fresh pineapple that hadn't been used for its intended purpose so I looked on the internet for suitable cake recipes and stumbled upon this recipe on the Tesco website*.  It looked incredibly straightforward, but see note at the end of the recipe.

 

In fact it could hardly have been easier, simply arranging the sliced pineapple in the tin and spooning the cake mixture on top.  No caramel topping to leak out of the tin and the easiest possible sponge cake mixture which I made even quicker using Stork soft margarine and the all in one method.  I didn't have a 25cm tin as specified in the recipe so used my 23cm tin and it was fine, just the right depth I thought.

 

 

In place of the caramel topping on the fruit you simply drizzle runny honey over the finished cake.  I didn't have any in stock so used golden syrup instead.  It was yummy!

 

 

The sponge was light, tasty and altogether delightful, the pineapple was sharp and delicious, offset by the subtle taste of the golden syrup which was not overly sweet.

 

 

It was such a success that I decided to make it again for this year's alternative to Christmas pudding, decorating the finished cake with a few glacé cherry halves and sprigs of rosemary from the garden for a festive touch.  It was quickly rustled up on Christmas Eve, the longest part of the preparation being to trim and slice the pineapple!  It went down really well, enjoyed with a little cream, custard, or home made brandy butter, or in some cases, all three!

 

Ingredients

1 medium fresh ripe pineapple

175g Stork soft margarine for cakes (or softened butter if you prefer)

175g caster sugar

3 eggs

175g self raising flour

2-3 tblsp milk

1 tblsp runny honey (or a good squirt of squeezy golden syrup)

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C / 160 fan / gas mk 4.  Butter a 23 cm springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

 

Prepare the pineapple by removing the top and bottom and slicing off the outer skin and tufts.  Cut in half vertically and remove the woody core with an apple corer or sharp knife Slice into thinnish slices about the thickness of a £1 or 1€ coin.  Arrange the slices in the bottom of the tin, covering as much area as possible.  (You may have some pineapple left over.)

 

To make the sponge beat together all the remaining ingredients except for the golden syrup in a large bowl until smooth and well combined.  Add enough of the milk to loosen the mixture but not make it too soft. 

 

Spoon the mixture carefully over the fruit and level the top.  Bake for about 45 minutes until done.

 

Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then release the clip and leave to cool.  When cool, remove the ring, put a plate or cake stand upside down on top and invert the cake.  Remove the circle of baking paper and drizzle a little honey or golden syrup over the top.

 

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

* Since I first wrote this post Tesco have changed the recipe on their website and it now uses tinned pineapple, which is a shame.

APPLE, ORANGE AND CRANBERRY CAKE and home made cake release paste

This cake came about because when I was rummaging in the fridge veg drawer for a carrot or two I spotted the box of fresh cranberries I had bought for Christmas.  I had been full of good intentions of making my own cranberry sauce to go with the turkey but then I completely forgot and we had a jar of sauce instead.

Wondering what I could do with them two weeks after the event, I had an idea.  There were also some apples and a large orange looking unloved in the fruit bowl so I decided to adapt the Mary Berry recipe for the apple and apricot cake and see how it turned out.  You can see that recipe here.  I substituted cranberries for the apricots and orange zest for the almond essence.  I used a ring tin instead of an ordinary round tin.

It turned out beautifully, in two ways.  I have to say that this is probably the nicest cake I have made in a long time.  The cranberries gave little bursts of sharpness in every mouthful, in contrast with the sweetness of the apples and the warmth of the orange. 

Quite delicious and one to add to my list of cakes that I shall definitely make again.
The other way it turned out really well was in using a home made cake release paste.

I do find preparing Bundt tins a real pain.  Getting melted butter into all those nooks and crannies, then dusting with flour, is a messy job and not easy to get right.  Turning them out is always stressful and I have had to disguise many a damaged cake with crafty icing in the past.  Equally I have had success with bought cake release in spray or liquid form but have been somewhat unsure about some of the ingredients and frankly some of them smell slightly unpleasant.
This stuff is a revelation, easy to make from storecupboard ingredients.  I put equal quantities of each component in my mini chopper and blitzed them to a paste.

It was easy to brush onto the tin and get into the crevices in a nice, even layer.  I cooled the cake in the tin for ten minutes and it slipped straight out on inverting it.  No tapping, shaking or cursing needed!  I can’t wait to try it on one of my more intricate Bundt tins.

You can see numerous recipes for it on the internet and most suggest it can be stored in a jar at room temperature.  That’s the only bit I’m unsure about.  It’s good that it’s completely natural with no added chemicals, but logic tells me I should keep it in the fridge.  But then it might be too stiff to use next time I need it.  So it resides in my kitchen cupboard for now and if it turns into something green and triffid like I’ll report back!
The cake had a nice, golden and slightly crisp outer crust which I attributed to the cake release.  It was not at all unpleasant, in fact it gave the cake a nice finish.  It will be interesting to see if the same kind of crust occurs every time I use the paste.

Update - on reading about the cake release in other places I decided to keep it in the fridge after all.  I'm pleased to say that it is still easy to brush into the tin straight from the fridge.

Apple, orange and cranberry cake

Ingredients
250g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
225g caster sugar
2 eggsfinely grated zest of 1 orange
150g butter, melted and cooled
225g apples, peeled*
120g fresh cranberries (I expect frozen ones would work too)

Method
Preheat the oven to 160 C / 140 Fan / gas mk 3.  Grease a Bundt tin or ring tin with home made cake release (see below), or butter and line the base of a 20cm round loose bottomed tin.

Put all the ingredients except for the fruit into a large bowl and mix well together to combine then beat for one minute.  Add the cranberries, slice the apples into the bowl and gently mix them in. 

Spoon into the tin and level the top. Bake for 1-1½ hours until done.  Cool in the tin for ten minutes before turning out by placing a cooling rack on top and flipping it over. 

Serve warm or at room temperature.

*The recipe says cooking apples but I used  dessert apples and they were fine.
Cuts into 10-12 slices.

Cake release

Measure 50g each of plain flour, vegetable oil and white cooking fat (I used Trex) into the bowl of a food processor or mini chopper.  Process until smooth.  Store unused paste in a jar in the fridge.  Bring out of the fridge for a few minutes before using.

SANDRINGHAM FRUIT CAKE or a tale of two fruit cakes #2

I don’t make a fruit cake very often, in fact most years I only make one and that’s the Christmas cake.  However, very recently I have made two, to different recipes, and been very pleased with them.  This is actually the second one and although it seems daft to post about #2 before #1 I wanted to get this one out because of the connection with Christmas.

The reason for making this cake began with a visit to our nearest (in fact very local) National Trust property, Hardwick Hall, to see the Christmas decorations.

I love having Hardwick Hall on our doorstep and we visit it regularly, just because we can.  The Christmas decorations did not disappoint – they were gorgeous.  We combined the outing with a pub lunch and when we got home we discovered that our puppy had been up to no good in our absence.

When I say puppy I actually mean our strapping 16 month old standard poodle Hugo.  He’s so big that it’s sometimes hard to remember that strictly speaking he still is a puppy but anyway he had decided to chew to bits the cover and first few pages of my little Good Food cake recipe book that I had left on the coffee table.  Little devil!

I rapidly ordered a replacement copy from Ebay and it arrived only two days later.  It’s in good condition, secondhand and with some page corners turned over.  I find that slightly annoying but it’s fascinating to see what recipes the previous owner has used.  Even more fascinating was the magazine clipping that fell out of the book!

This has happened before and on that occasion, as now, I felt compelled to make the recipe.  You can read about Sharon’s Hotpot here.

The recipe was for Sandringham Fruit Cake which obviously has royal connections so I fired up the old laptop to see what it was all about.  I came up with nothing very much except for several references to date and walnut cake being the Queen Mother’s favourite and a light fruit cake being popular for afternoon tea.  I looked in my recipe books and couldn’t find it anywhere there either. 

So I decided to have a go anyway and I’m really glad I did.  It was lovely.  Dead easy to make, not heavy on the fruit or spice and therefore easy to eat.

I served it on my lovely new Christmas Robin cake stand, too.

The recipe is written in ounces first with grams in brackets suggesting that it could be quite old but there were no other clues as to where it had come from.  It also gave no size of tin to use.  I guessed an 8” from the quantity of the ingredients but it was cooked half an hour before the time stated. 

Ingredients

4oz / 100g sugar (I used golden caster)

4oz / 100g margarine (I used Stork for Cakes)

8oz / 225g self raising flour

2 eggs

12oz / 350g mixed dried fruit

½ cup (4 fl oz or 125ml) milk

½ tsp mixed spice

Method

“Using a wooden spoon, mix sugar and margarine together until creamy and stir in the rest of the ingredients to make a firm, stodgy mixture.”

(I creamed the sugar and Stork with my hand held mixer, then beat in the eggs and folded in the rest of the ingredients.)

Turn into prepared tin and bake for about two hours at 160C / 315F / gas mk3.

Bake for 2 hours – mine was ready in 1½ hours.

Cool in the tin before turning out.

Cuts into 10 – 12 slices.