You can’t beat a delicious slice of fruit cake with a cup of tea and this one ticks all the boxes. Using dried cranberries and sour cherries makes a change from the usual sultanas or raisins and the ground almonds complement the flavour of the fruit beautifully. It also makes the cake a little more moist so it keeps better too but I don’t imagine this will hang around very long!

• Makes an 18cm or 71/2″ cake
• 140g self-raising flour
• 55g plain spelt flour
• 85g ground almonds
• 75g dried cranberries
• 75g dried sour cherries (Waitrose Cook’s Ingredients)
• 170g unsalted butter, softened
• 170g golden caster sugar
• 3 eggs at room temperature, beaten

To make…

• Grease a deep 18cm cake tin and line the bottom with a disc of baking parchment.
• Heat the oven to 170C.
• Sift the flours together and add the ground almonds, dried cranberries and cherries. This will help to prevent the fruit sinking to the bottom of the cake.
• Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer. Add the eggs gradually, beat well between each addition. Mix in a spoonful of flour if it looks like it’s splitting.
• Fold in the flour and fruit mixture and pour into the cake tin. Smooth the top with the back of a spoon.
• Cook in the centre of the oven for 45-60 minutes. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean.
• Leave it in the tin to cool for 10 minutes and then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

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