Christmas cake style tray bake

Quick, easy and impressive! Dress it up with royal icing, even marzipan, or keep the decoration simple. You could also of course make it in a deep 20 cm cake tin, round or square.

Slice of Christmas cake style tray bake
Ingredients
200g butter, softened plus extra for greasing
200g dark muscovado sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp black treacle
200g self-raising flour
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp baking powder
2 eating apples, grated (approx 100g each)
300g mixed fruit
Method

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line the bottom of a tray bake tin with greaseproof paper.
Beat all the ingredients bar the apple and mixed fruit together in a large bowl until pale and thick. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold in the fruit until evenly combined.

Spoon the batter into the tin and bake for 40-45 mins or until the cake is dark golden, springy to the touch and has shrunk away from the tin slightly. Mine took 40 mins in the electric oven, tested with a skewer. A normal oven might take longer.

Cool in the tray, and make sure it’s completely cold before decorating. The cake will keep, wrapped in a tea towel in an airtight container or iced, for up to a week. You can also freeze it, un-iced, before decorating.

Original recipe from BBC Good Foods

More recipes on the blog can be found here.