Julie's Never Fail Fruit Cake

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Rich, moist and not too sweet, this terrific fruit cake is baked in the Australian way.

Well, it's Julie Jones's way, and she's a dinky di Aussie if ever there was one!

Before doing anything else, it would pay you to double-line a 10 cm cake tin, ready for the oven. Make sure you have plenty of room for the cake to rise. Once you've done that, the difficult bit is over with.

Then assemble the following:

• 470grm tin of crushed pineapple
• 500 grm mixed dried fruit
• 125 grm butter
• 225 grm sugar
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 140 grm flour
• 140 grm self-raising flour
• pinch salt
• 2 eggs

Mix and heat the first five ingredients in a suitable saucepan and boil for 3 minutes. Allow to cool. Luke warm is okay - any hotter and you risk cooking the eggs as you add them.

Pre-heat the oven to medium (180C, 350F)

Add the sifted flours, bicarb and salt to the mix and stir well. Beat the eggs and mix in thoroughly. Transfer everything to your lined cake tin and bake in the oven for 1.5 hours. Test with a skewer (I use bamboo) and if it comes out clean it will be a minor miracle - this cake usually takes around 2 hours at that temperature. But still test it, I've known it to cook more quickly. I've also known it to take a lot longer. It seems to depend on the amount of juice in the pineapple, or maybe the dried fruit you use makes a difference.

Cool by replacing in the switched off oven with the door partially open. Once you can handle it without burning yourself, transfer it to a cooling rack.

Just don't give up on it. When you taste it you'll know why I go to the trouble of making it - and why it doesn't hang around long enough for me to get a second slice. It has great keeping qualities, but you'll never get the chance to find out for how long!

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