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Preparation Time: 20 minutes (+ overnight soaking)
Cooking time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Serves: 12
If served as twelve portions, provides 600 cals, 22g fat (of which 9g saturates), 70g sugar and 0.6g salt per portion.
Ingredients
Soaking mix
- 450g (16oz) mixed dried fruit
- 75g (3oz) pitted dates (stones removed and finely chopped)
- Zest of 1 large orange and 125ml (5fl oz) of the juice, adding water if necessary
Cake mix
- 175g (6oz) soft butter or margarine
- 175g (6oz) dark soft brown sugar
- 225g (8oz) self-raising flour
- 75g (3oz) ground almonds
- 2 tsp ground mix spice
- 2 tbsp black treacle
- 3 medium eggs
- 75g (3oz) glace cherries (halved and rinsed)
Topping and middle
- 450g (16oz) marzipan
- 1 tbsp apricot jam (warmed)
- Icing sugar for dusting
Method
1. Place soaking mix ingredients into a bowl, add in the zest and orange juice, cover and microwave for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool and soak for a few hours until plump, ideally overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 150°C/Fan 130°C/Gas Mark 2.
3. Line the base and sides of a deep 20cm (8in) loose bottom cake tin with a double layer of greased baking parchment paper, ensuring the sides of the paper come up at least 5cm (2in) above the top rim of the tin. Cut 2 discs to cover the base and reserve 1 to cover the top.
4. Beat butter and sugar together until soft and creamy with an electric whisk, add all the other cake ingredients (except glace cherries) and beat together for 2 minutes. Stir in the soaked fruit mix and glace cherries.
5. Roll out a third of the marzipan into a 20cm (8in) round on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Spoon ½ of the cake mixture into the tin, top with the marzipan round and cover with the remaining cake mixture. Smooth the top surface with a spatula but make a slight dent in the middle, this helps the top of the cake to bake flat.
6. Place on the bottom shelf of a pre-heated oven and bake for 2¼ - 2½ hours. Lay the other prepared circle of parchment paper on top of the cake if it's browning too quickly.
7. Test the cake to check if it is cooked by inserting a fine skewer into the centre; if it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If the cake requires additional cooking, retest every 10 minutes until the skewer comes out clean.
8. Rest the baked cake on a cooling tray. Remove from tin when cold.
9. To decorate: brush the top cake surface with the warmed apricot jam. Roll out half the remaining marzipan into a 20cm (8in) round and cover the top of the cake. Make 11 marzipan balls with the remainder and rest on the top of the cake. Place cake under a pre-heated grill to brown. Leave to cool.
10. Once made the cake can be wrapped in foil and stored in an airtight container.
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