I make - Light Fruit Cake

Light(er) in fruits and equally delicious. This dried fruit cake is adapted from Mary Berry's Simnel cake. My main contribution is to add the dried cherries soaked in Amaretto. If you haven't tried dried sour cherries before, I urge you to give it a go. Its distinct sour taste adds a nice twist to the fruit cake. It's gentle but memorable.


Light fruit cake

For the cake
175g light muscovado sugar (or caster sugar)
175g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
zest from 1 orange

3 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract

175g self-raising flour

50g/1/2 cup ground almonds
3 tbsp orange juice (or milk)
100g/1/2 cup dried sour cherries, soaked in 1 tablespoon of Amaretto
50g/1/2 cup candied mixed peels (or sultanas)
100g dried apricots, cut into small pieces

For the topping
15 g melted butter

15 g powder sugar
30 g ground almond

1/2 beaten egg

Preheat the oven at 180C. Prepare your loaf tin or round cake tin for baking.

Beat the softened butter with sugar and orange zest until fluffy. Add in eggs one by one.  Mix in dried fruits (sour cherries, mixed peels and chopped apricots) and vanilla. Stir to blend in. Sift the flour and ground almond before adding into the butter mixture. Stir everything gently to combine. Pour the batter into a loaf tin or a 20-cm round cake tin.

Mix all the topping ingredients together and pour on top of the cake batter.

Bake at 180C for 50-60 minutes. Turn the cake around half way through the baking. Cake is done when it passes the toothpick test.