Tonight we made healthy option cakes. Every student chose their own fruit to put into their delicious cakes and each took home 12 cakes to enjoy at home. Take a look at the picture and then try the recipes at home, so you can enjoy them as much as we did.


Date and sultana cakes made with muscavado sugar, tropical fruit cakes and sugarless banana and fruit cakes.


Fruit cake recipe

225 g (8 oz) Self Raising Flour
100 g (4 oz) margarine
100 g (4 oz) caster sugar (use brown or muscavado for a different taste)
175 g (6 oz) mixed dried fruit (tropical, cranberries, blueberries etc)
2 medium eggs
2 x 15 ml spoon (2 tbsp) milk

1
Heat oven to 180ºC, 350ºF, Gas Mark 4. Grease an 18 cm (7 inch) cake tin, or make 12 muffin size small cakes which will take less time.
2
Mix flour, rub in margarine.
3
Stir in sugar and fruit. Beat together eggs and milk.
4
Mix together to a soft consistency.
5
Place in prepared tin and bake for about 50 minutes. Small cakes should take about 25-30minutes. Check if ready by placing your finger on the top if the sponge is ready it will spring back up.

VARIATIONS

Lemon and Sultana
Add 175 g (6 oz) sultanas and grated rind of 1 lemon.

Dried fruit
Add 175g (6oz) any dried fruit eg apricots, cranberries, blueberries, cherries etc some students added lemon zest and juice to their mixture.

Date
Add 75 g (3 oz) chopped dates and add 25g (1 oz) walnuts if you like.


You can add coconut to make a different textured cake by omitting 30g or 60g (1 oz/2 oz) of flour and replacing with coconut. One student sprinkled coconut on top of the cakes to make a crunchy topping.

Try lots of different combinations we did and they all looked and tasted great.