Farmhouse Fruit Cake

I promise you all, I was going to take a photo of the cake I baked however when I went to take the picture, the cake had all gone (I'm looking at you, dad!). This cake always reminds me of being really little and watching my mum bake and every time she bakes it, even to this day, the smell transports me back to being small. I decided to have a go at baking it because both me and my dad really love this cake...it tastes so good!

INGRDIENTS

275g Self-raising flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

225g butter

225g caster sugar

1 orange (grated & juiced)

5 eggs

350g sultanas

125g raisins

175g chopped glace cherries

50g chopped mixed peel

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 150C/Gas mark 2

2. Sift the flour and salt together. Then add the butter and sugar and rub it together. To do this, with your fingertips (and thumb) rub all the mixture together until it looks a bit like breadcrumbs. 

3. Grate (or zest if you want to get fancy) the orange rind and beat it in. Then beat in the eggs, then fruit and then the juice of the orange

4. Line a 20cm/8 inch cake tin with a double thickness of greaseproof paper and spoon the mixture into it. I actually used two smaller cake tins and made two smaller cakes as I was giving one of them to a friend. 

5. Bake the cake for two and a half hours, or until you can but a knife into the centre and it comes out clean

And voila! You have a yummy cake which technically has at least 2 of your 5 a day! Let me know in the comments if you try making it and tag me in any photos of your bakes on instagram or twitter