INCREDIBLY EASY CHOCOLATE FRUIT CAKE

I think it’s hard to improve on this cake: dark, damp, squidgy and luscious; you don’t taste the chocolate full- on – the cocoa just leaves a hint of smokey richness. Nor, I should add, do you taste the prunes. When I was making this cake for one of my TV programmes, the cameraman, Wee Nev (Neville Kidd, the eminent director of photography), said with force, ‘ Eugh, I HATE prunes!’ But when he ate it later, he proclaimed it to be the best Christmas cake he’d ever had. And he asked for the recipe so he could ask his wife to make it for Christmas. I don’t mean to crow; it sounds so undignified. But it’s important that you know how universally seductive this cake is, for all that it starts off ‘ 350g prunes’.

Makes at least 10 generous slices 350g (12oz) prunes, scissored or chopped

250g (9oz) raisins

175g (6oz) currants

175g (6oz) soft butter

175g (6oz) dark muscovado sugar 175ml (6fl oz) honey

125ml (4fl oz) Tia Maria or other coffee liqueur

Juice and finely grated zest of 2 oranges

1tsp mixed spice

4tbsp cocoa powder

3 eggs, beaten

150g (5½oz) plain flour

75g (2¾oz) ground almonds ½tsp baking powder

½tsp bicarbonate of soda

For decoration

25g (1oz) dark chocolate-covered coffee beans

10 edible gold stars, edible gold mini balls and edible glitter in gold

Preheat the oven to 150° C/fan 130°C/gas 2 and prepare a 20cm x 9cm round, loose- bottomed cake tin by lining the bottom and sides with a double layer of baking parchment (though I find that if you use one layer of that tough, reusable silicone baking parchment, my beloved Bake- O- Glide, it does the job well enough, and as the cake

is so dark, you don’t see if it catches a little).

Put the fruits, butter, sugar, honey, Tia Maria, orange juice and zest, spice and cocoa powder into a large, wide saucepan and gently bring to the boil, stirring as the butter melts.

Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to stand for 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes are up – it will have cooled a little, but you can leave it for longer if you want – add the beaten eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula to combine.

Pour the fruit cake mixture into the prepared cake tin. Place in the oven and bake for 1¾-2 hours, by which time the top of the cake

should be firm but will have a shiny, sticky look. If you insert a cake tester or skewer into it, the cake will still be a little gooey in the middle. Put the cake, still in its tin, on a wire cooling rack – it will hold its heat and take a while to cool; once cool, take it out of the tin and, if you don’t want to eat it immediately (like any fruit cake it has a long life), wrap it in baking parchment or greaseproof paper then in foil and store in a cake or other airtight tin.

To decorate, place the chocolate-covered coffee beans in the centre of the cake and arrange the gold stars around the perimeter of the top. Then sprinkle some gold mini balls over the whole cake, and the edible glitter over the top, not minding that you will be a-glitter yourself for a while.