Fruit cake - the ultimate according to my tasters

I've made a few fruit cakes in my time, but I've never found THE RECIPE until now. Thanks goes to the lovely Elaine for passing it on to me. Both my Mother in law and Grandma Kiwicakes have declared it one of the nicest they've ever eaten. And I quite like it myself, too.

I recently made some for a fundraising bake sale. I made over ten different items in one afternoon, so these had to be decorated simply &;.with the help of Christmas plunger cutters, pre-coloured Satin Ice and a little glitter - they were decorated in about ten minutes each. I decided to go with non-traditional colours to jazz up the bake sale table.

This recipe is very simple and has so far cooked beautifully every time I've used it. The only bother I find is waiting for the simmered fruit cake mix to cool. To speed this up, I find using a large frypan instead of a saucepan helps. Although, if you've planned well enough in advance this part can be done the day before.

Ingredients:
1.2kg fruit mix
250g butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp baking soda

Simmer all together for 10 minutes, then allow to cool (can leave overnight). 

Add
3 eggs well beaten
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
essence of brandy, rum, lemon or almond (or a mix of all of them)

Bake at 150C 1-2 hours (until skewer comes out clean)

This mix makes one very deep 8'' cake. Or 2.5-3'' deep 9/10'' cake. Or having tested it out for small cakes, I was also able to get from one batch 1x each 4'', 5''& 6'' - all baked at 3'' high.

As these were for a bake sale, I made one with marzipan and one without, to suit varying tastes. Whether you use marzipan or not, it is still important to fill the holes where fruit has shrunk away, so the surface of your fondant layer stays nice and flat on your finished cake.

I used the snowflake plunger cutter from this set, cut from white fondant Satin Ice to make a cut-out for the top of the cake.

The cake is covered in pastel green Satin Ice fondant and sprinkled with hologram glitter. A bead mould is a very quick way to make a fondant border to finish a cake. I prefer this to ribbon, as it's quicker to attach to a cake and doesn't need removed prior to cutting the cake.

I used the bauble plunger cutter from this set, cut from white fondant Satin Ice to make a cut-out for the top of the cake.

The cake is covered in pink Satin Ice fondant and sprinkled with hologram glitter.

Apparently the cakes, along with the other goodies I made for the bake sale, sold very quickly. I hope they enjoyed my cakes.