Every year I bake and decorate a Christmas cake. I normally bake over the Halloween bank holiday and decorate the weekend before Christmas.

However, that means there are almost two full months when there is a Christmas cake in the house that nobody is allowed to touch. This year I decided, enough was enough, I’d make a light fruit cake to keep us going through the month of November.

I found the original recipe on Mum’s Net following a Google search. I jazzed it up with lots of Christmas flavours including mixed spice, citrus zest and booze. It wouldn’t be a Christmas cake without some alcohol.

Hope you enjoy!

Amy x

Ingredients
240g sultanas
100g glace cherries
75g caster sugar
40g soft dark brown sugar
115g butter, softened
Zest of an orange or lemon
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 banana, mashed
100ml milk
75ml port or other alcohol of choice
200g self-raising flour
25g ground almonds
1 tsp mixed spice

Method
Place the dried fruit in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside while you prepare the rest of the cake.

Grease and line an 8″ cake tin. Preheat the oven to 150C.

Cream the butter, sugars and orange zest together until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, vanilla, banana, milk and port.

Drain the fruit and fold into the mixture along with the remaining dry ingredients.

Bake in the preheated oven for an hour then turn up the heat to 180C, cover the cake with tin foil and bake for a further 20-30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the tin and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting.