Generic fruitcake

This is based, roughly, on a recipe from the Anchor butter website. I've removed cherries and apple from the mix, and added about 50 percent more dried fruit.

Ingredients

• 200g butter
• 200g flour
• 200g dark brown sugar
• 3 eggs (beaten)
• 1 tablespoon black treacle
• 2 teaspoons of spice (1 teaspoon of cinammon, 1 of nutmeg does the trick)
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 375g of sultanas/mixed dried fruit

Instructions

Throw everything except the fruit into a mixing bowl.
Using an electric mixer, mix until it is a light brown, fluffy mixture with no obvious lumps (this will generally be the butter, unless the butter was chopped finely earlier).
Pour half of the mixed fruit into the mix, and fold into the mixture with a tablespoon.
Pour the second half of the mixed fruit into the mix, and repeat until the the mixture contains a roughly constant density of mixed fruit.
Preheat the oven to gas mark 4
Butter the sides and bottom of a 20cm cake tin.
Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Make a well in the middle (this causes the top to flatten as it rises rather than become volcano-like) and put it in the bottom of the oven.
Wait about an hour. The cake is done when a knife comes out clean.

What can go wrong

If the temperature is too high, the outside of the cake can cook before the centre has suitable firmed. Don't put it too high in the oven.