With the Christmas cake but a distant memory, there comes a time when only a fruit cake will do. Rather than going for something heavy or complex, we love this simple throw it all together fruit loaf recipe. This is my mum's recipe, tweaked and changed over the years, and possibly originating as a magazine scrap quite some time ago. (The original calls for margarine, but we use butter.) Ideal for morning coffee or jazz it up with an orange or apricot icing for the perfect afternoon tea.
Cherry and Apricot Fruit Loaf
Ingredients
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Cherry and Apricot Fruit Loaf
Ingredients
3 eggs
100g butter, soft
100g light brown sugar
175g self-raising flour
75g glace cherries, halved
100g dried apricots, chopped
50g mixed peel
100g golden sultanas
100g golden sultanas
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 160C/140C Fan. Grease and line a large loaf tin.
2. Combine the eggs, butter, sugar and flour. Beat until smooth, then fold in the dried fruit.
3. Tip the cake batter into the prepared tin and make sure it goes into all the corners. Level the surface.
4. Bake for 70 minutes until the cake is firm to the touch, golden brown and beginning to shrink away from the tin at the edges. Insert a fine skewer into the centre, it should come out clean.
5. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and place on a cooling rack.
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