Marmalade and sultana loaf cake

Somewhere in my memories, I have the memory of a cake my Mum made when I was young. My Dad loved a slice of similar cake with a big chunk of cold butter on top! I remember it well!

I feel sure it was a recipe where she rubbed the fat into the flour and then added the other ingredients rather than creaming the fat and sugar together so I set to, making up the recipe as I went along to try to recreate this cake of my childhood and this is what I have come up with.

Ingredients

8ozs S R flour

½teaspoon of baking powder

3 ozs of margarine, butter or baking liquid

3 ozs sugar

2 ozs sultanas

2 heaped desertspoons of Orange marmalade

1 large egg

1 fluid oz of milk (approximately)

Method

Pre heat the oven to 180° Electric, 4 Gas, 160° Fan oven .   Bake for 35 mins or longer if required. Test with a skewer which should come out with no unbaked mixture on when baked)

I sieved 8ozs of S R flour into a bowl with

½ teaspoon of baking powder and added

3 ozs of Stork baking liquid (or butter, or margarine)

If I’d have used solid fat, I would have rubbed it in as if making pastry but with the baking liquid being wet I used this contraption, which is really useful too if you have difficulty making pastry as your hands are too hot.

I added 2ozs of sultanas

2 heaped desertspoons of marmalade (the tablespoon wouldn’t go in the jar)

I then separated an egg and beat up the white until it was in soft peaks, then added the yolk, mixed together and then added to the other ingredients.

I then added approximately 1 fluid oz of milk and mixed until the mixture was a soft dropping consistency.

Avoid overworking the mixture as this makes the gluten in the flour tough.

The mixture went into a 1lb loaf tin lined with baking parchment and baked in the middle of the over for 35mins at 160° fan (180° electric, Gas mark 4) It may take longer. Test with a skewer which should come out cleanly when baked.

The loaf when baked was light and moist, not over sweet and a really great attempt to re create the taste of my Mum’s cake.
I grew up in Ripon and I remember my Grandma baking loaves of cake and sparsely adding dried fruit saying it had been thrown in from the top of the Cathedral (some had obviously missed as were so sparse). I felt a bit like this as I only added 2ozs of fruit. You could add more if you wished.

My loaf cracked on top. Perhaps I’ll lower my oven temperature next time I bake this. It was great to eat but I believe when cakes crack like this the top has baked before the cake middle which then has to push through the crust.

It was delicious. Enjoy!