There is nothing my husband loves at the weekend more than a cake with his afternoon tea.  Over the years we have moved from buying cakes to making cakes.  And now it seems that he has decided that cake baking is now within his weekend domestic duties.  I’d like to think that this is because of a growing interest in all things culinary but in truth I think it’s because my baking habit is slight unreliable leaving us cake-less which will never do.

On one hand I’m happy to sit back and relax (or rather do something else on my never ending to do list) but I was starting to enjoy baking.  I can see that the negotiation on cake baking has yet to start in earnest.  But for now I’ve enjoyed a Victoria Sponge Cake and this weekend’s delight was a fruit cake.

To keep things quick and simple MT choose an “Easy Fruitcake”.  From Jo Segar’s recipe book this is one of those bung in the fruit, flour and juice and mix type of cakes.  No complicated soaking, beating and very little measuring.  Just lots of mixing.

It was pretty tricky capturing the cake baking in action as the cook had not quite appreciated that food blogging requires a little staging.  In other words to slow down enough with your mixing that the photographs aren’t blurred.  On the plus side, I was a little less encumbered now I wasn’t cooking and could take to climbing up to try and get some shots from above.   The only problem that this cake was so easy before I could do a quick change on the camera lens the cake mixture was in the tin ready for the oven.

I’m unconvinced we’ve mastered our oven yet.  I’m going to try and be more rigorous with my experimentation so we can really judge the time and temperature for baking more accurately. MT has at least learned the smell timer now so when you can start to smell your cake that’s a sign to check and keep checking to avoid it going from cake smell to burned cake smell!  Let’s just say we’re on the dark side of golden brown this time, no damage done.

There is then the frustrating wait for the cake to cool sufficiently before tucking in.  The is torture for us and the bassets who are by now aching to taste what they can smell.  Poor bassets, no raisins for them as they are highly toxic for dogs and when eaten in quantity can kill.  Grapes have the same effect for obvious reasons!

This “Easy Fruit Cake” was indeed easy although seemed to cook for as long as a normal fruit cake would.  I personally would rather go for a full blown fruit cake baked the traditional way, there is something quite therapeutic about unloading your baking cupboard onto the bench and then into the bowl with lots of weighing and mixing.  It always seems to take me as long to clear up the debris as it does to bake the cake.

You can see this cake is packed with fruit.  It was very dense and chewy but not too sweet.  It actually has a butter icing to top it off but we didn’t wait to complete that step as we were rather focused on getting our afternoon tea in the same afternoon.  We did of course go the extra step of icing for the next days treat.

There is something very civilised about having a cup of tea and slice of cake.  The sharpness of the tea with the sweetness of the cake.  The only downside of baking for two is that you can end up with heaps more cake than is probably civilised to be eating in one weekend.  Good job then that MT has started taking a packed lunch to work so I can stuff a slice of his weekend baking in to keep his low blood sugar moments at bay.

With this new foodie innovation at Domestic Executive HQ I’m much more responsive to the phrase “Cake dear…” Instead of groaning inwardly that I had neglected to bake, I can sit back and say “Don’t mind if I do!” in the knowledge that I’m going to be served up with a slab of something sweat and tasty with a large mug of tea.  You can’t beat it.