Something rather fruity…

One of my very few childhood food dislikes that has stayed with me as an adult is sultanas and raisins. Which is why I couldn’t (and still can’t) stand traditional christmas pudding or fruit cake. But now I do my own baking, I can make those kinds of cakes with all the other dried fruits I love so much. And that’s what I did yesterday.

I took a recipe for vegan fruit cake from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea – the cookery book from Paris’s Rose Bakery – not because I have any vegan tendencies (I think you may have guessed by now that my eating habits are as far from veganism as it’s possible for a human to be!), but just because the recipe was pretty simple, and it uses sunflower oil instead of butter. This means the two cakes I made should remain moist and fresh for longer.

Which is exactly what I wanted, as the small cake is going to Japan (sorry Kazumi, if you’re reading this – that’s your birthday surprise ruined!). While the other, larger cake is coming with me to Istanbul on Thursday, as I’m spending christmas and new year there with my boyfriend, Suleyman. The cake is for our friends Meryem and Özgür. Meryem is a great cook, and when I was last in Istanbul in September, she made me an amazing Turkish feast for my birthday. So I’m returning the favour with this quintessentially English cake.

I made half the amount of mixture again, in order to have enough batter for the two cakes, and, as there was a bit left over, I made these teeny-tiny fruit-cake bites – perfect for a sneaky nibble when I fancy something sweet!

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