Granny's fruit cake

The granny referred to in the title is actually an amalgamation of both my grannies, only one of whom is still alive (and still baking cakes, in her nineties! Forget supernanny, she is supergranny!)

It was supergranny whom I learned the recipe from - she always has a tin of fruit cake, jam sponge cake or homemade Eccles cakes to hand when I visit. So I always thought of it as her recipe and only found out recently that the recipe was originally passed from my mum's mum, to my mum, and then on to supergranny.

The great things about this cake are:

- easy to make and only uses one pan and a cake tin
- very, very moist and very, very tasty
- lasts weeks (if you can stop yourself eating it!)
- NO CANDIED PEEL!

You know how I hate candied peel. Or you should know by now, unless this is your first visit to my blog! This fruit cake contains sultanas and raisins. That's all in the way of fruit. You can put other fruits in if you like, sometimes I chop a few dried apricots or dates in if they need using up, but it's fab with just the two.

So, here's what you do.


Get a largish pan, and put the following into it:

60z (150g) margarine or butter
1.25 cup raisins
1.25 cup sultanas
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1tsp bicarb of soda

Don't worry if you haven't got a set of proper cup measures. I just use a smallish cup and make sure I use it the same one throughout.

Put it on the hob, heat until all the margarine has melted, then simmer for 20 minutes. The fruit will be lovely and plump by now. Leave it to cool for a while.



Turn the oven on to gas mark 2 (this is low, 150 C or 300 F).


Line your cake tin with greaseproof paper. My cake tin is approx 8 inch diameter and has a removable base, it's perfect for this cake. I line it with paper that I cut off a roll - a circle for the base and two strips for the outside. This is the most tedious bit of the whole recipe but you can even bypass this bit by buying cake tin liners from Lakeland. Good if you do a lot of baking but I think they are quite pricey myself.

A tip from supergranny is to put a few licks of grease on the tin too - it keeps your lining in the right place, which is vital if you have cut the paper off a roll.



When the boiled fruit has cooled a bit, mix in:

2 eggs
2 cups of self-raising flour



Stir a bit till it's relatively smooth, don't worry too much about the consistency. The worst that will happen is you might get a tiny burst of white flour in your slice of cake, quite pretty really.

Scrape it all into the tin, place on the 4th shelf down, and bake for 1.5 - 1.75 hours.

Check it's done by sticking a skewer or knitting needle into the middle, and make sure it comes out clean.

Cool the cake on a rack, remove the paper before storing.


It will keep for a good few weeks, but you can also freeze the cake (or a section of it) if you don't want to eat it all at once.