200g dried currants, 50g dried dates chopped, 50g rolled oats, 100g candied fruit christmas cake mix in a huge mixing bowl. Soak another 100g of xmas fruit cake mix in brandy diluted with water.
12 pecan nuts, 3 brazil nuts, and 4 hazelnuts finely chopped.
• Place all ingredients into the bowl with 200g morello cherries.
• Place 2 cinnamon sticks, 7 cloves, 1 star anise, 12 pimento berries, and 2 cardamom pods into a pestle and mortar. Grind well and add to bowl. Then add ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg, one and a half tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground allspice, 2 heaped teaspoons blueberry jam, 2 heaped teaspoons quince jam (or orange marmalade), and lastly 3 teaspoons of black treacle.
• In another bowl cream together 250g dark brown sugar and 250g salted butter. Then mix in 4 extra-large free range eggs.
• Slowly add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to this bowl. Which are: 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda (bicarb of soda), 350g cake flour. Then fold the rest in by hand with a spatula.
• Add 'dough' to fruit mix and mix well.
• Preheat oven to 150ºC. Prepare a 20cm square baking tin by lining it with wax wrap or baking parchment, with waxy side up not down. Trim the paper so that it sticks above the tin by 5cm.
• Pour in the cake mixture and level with a spoon or a knife. Then cap the cake with a square of aluminium foil to prevent the top from scorching in the oven. Shiny side facing into the cake, dull side facing up.
• Bake in the oven for 3 and ½ hours or until a toothpick comes out perfectly clean.
• Leave to cool in the tin. Empty out onto a board and remove all baking paper.
Serve hot or cold. If serving hot, it's best served with custard.