What a cook up!! Part 2

I actually did this baking yesterday but by the time I had finished writing my mamoth post on the savouries I didn't have enough brain power left to write about the baking! must be my age :-)  I hadn't really planned on doing baking as well but I had a spare shelf in the oven while the casseroles were cooking and needed to make good use of it.  Casseroles are quite forgiving and let you turn the oven up and down without spoiling anything and with it set to 160* I made these little fruit loaves. I have had this recipe for quite a long time, it was given to me by my daughter in law's granny who is in her eighties and has been making this fruit cake since she was a girl, taught by her mother!. I love these kind of recipes, the ones passed down through the generations, tried and tested hundreds of times. I used to bake these for our local Farmers Market and they were always a winner so I thought I would share them with you. I renamed the recipe as Alices Fruit Cake in honour of granny Alice.

 Here are the ingredients you will need for
Alices Fruit Cake
350g Dried Fruit & Glace Cherries
1/2 pint Milk
225g Butter or marg
175g Sugar
2 teaspoons Mixed Spice
1 teaspoon Bicarb of Soda

350g Self Raising Flour
2 large Eggs beaten.

Oven 160*c for about an hour or until cooked and firm to touch. Please note that I have made double the quantity to make 4 x 1lb loaf cakes

Using a large saucepan you put in the dried fruit and cherries, Butter, Sugar, Milk, Spice and Bicarb. Bring to the boil gently and simmer for a couple of minutes, keep stiring so that it doesn't stick to the bottom, it will froth up a bit with the bicarb so don't worry. Take off the ring and leave to cool.

 You can see the fruit mixture in the pan and it doesn't look too appertizing but it smells wonderful.
Pour into the flour and add the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly, I cheat and use my mixer. It is quite gloopy!

 Pour the batter into lined loaf tins, you will only have 2 if you followed the amount above. We love this cake so as I said I did Double quantity You can see I pinched a bit of the mixture out to make a dozen bun size ones, great for pack-up or picnics.

Bake in the 160*c oven for about an hour, the buns took about 25 mins. They should be firm to touch or use a skewer to check, it should come out clean.

Here are the finished cakes, they are better if you can keep them in a tin for a day before cutting as they firm up a bit. Three of mine are wrapped up in the freezer for a later date.

They are gorgeous cakes and well worth the effort.
If you wanted to make a special birthday cake you can use the above ingredients to make an 8" round just watch your timings for your oven as it will need a bit longer to cook, maybe 1 1/2 hours.





 Cherry Scones
450g Self Raising Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
175g Butter or marg
175g Sugar
100g Glace Cherries
2 Eggs beaten
Milk

Rub butter into flour and baking powder until resembles breadcrumbs, stir in the sugar and chopped cherries. Add the egg and enough milk to make a soft but not sticky dough. Tip out onto the worktop and press out until about 1 inch thick, I don't bother with a rolling pin but be gentle with the dough and dont squash out the air, you want them to be light and fluffy.
Cut with a 2.5 inch cutter or a small glass, place on baking tray and brush with the residue egg or milk.
Bake in a hot oven 200*c for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. I made 17 with this mix.

Just need to put the kettle on and have one warm with a nice cuppa......yum!!

I have cut the Alice Fruit Cake for you to see the inside, it was still a bit warm and crumbly but you can see how delicious it looks, I wish you could smell it too............gorgeous!

So thats my Savouries and my Sweet Stuff in the freezer and that will keep us going for a while.

I'm taking my Mum clothes shopping today so I will probably have lost the will to live by lunch time!!!

Have a great day whatever you decide to do xxx