700g sultanas
220g raisins
125g currants
125g glace cherries – red and green
125g mixed peel
125g almonds chopped
½ cup brandy or rum or sweet sherry
220g butter, softened
2 tbsp brandy or rum or sweet sherry
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp lemon zest
½tsp salt
4 eggs
2 tbsp marmalade
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp mixed spice
¼tsp nutmeg
¼tsp cinnamon

Chop all the fruit into similar sizes – raisins, cherries and peel – and mix altogether.  Combine with brandy and mix well; cover and stand overnight or longer.

Line a 20cm square cake tin with 3 thicknesses of brown paper and silicone paper, bringing it 6 cm above the tin sides.

Beat butter until soft, add sugar and beat carefully until just combined; be careful at this stage, as it can curdle.  Add the lemon and orange zests.  Beat the eggs in one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Stir in marmalade.

Add creamed mixture to fruit mixture and mix well.  Stir in sifted dry ingredients.  Pour and spread evenly into the prepared tin.

Bake in a slow oven at 150º for 3 – 3 ½ + hours, until when you insert the cake skewer carefully into the centre of the cake, it comes out clean. After the first 30 minutes or so, cover with silicone paper to prevent the top browning too much.  When cooked remove from the oven and brush with extra brandy.  Cool covered loosely with baking paper and a tea towel until cold.

Remove from the cooking wrapping and rewrap again in baking paper and brown paper; store in airtight container.

This quantity makes these combinations: 4 x small rectangular cakes 8cm x 3cm; cook 3 - 3½  hours; I x 15cm sq. plus 2 x 8cm x 3cm rectangular cakes; cook 3-3 ½ hr.