Festive Friday is back!

Pickle-Lily is making our big Christmas cake with the guides this year, but we also make mini cakes at home, which make lovely gifts.

Mini Christmas cake

So now is the time to bake your fruit cakes. This mix makes five mini cakes.
For the mixture you need
100g butter
100g of soft brown sugar
340g of mixed fruit
130g plain flour
1 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs

Cream the butter and sugar together and then beat in the eggs.
Fold in the flour and mixed spices.
Stir in the fruit.
Now the clever part! For the tins I use small baked bean tins - you'll need the sort with ring tabs. Give them a good wash after you've eaten the contents, and then using a tin opener, carefully open the the bottom of the tin. Let the bottom you've just cut drop through to the top. The cut edge will rest nicely on the small lip left by the ring pull lid, and voila you have a mini loose base tin. Be careful as the base is sharp!

Mini loose base tin for free!

I then lined it with a double layer of greaseproof or baking paper (no need to grease!) and filled my tins with the mixture.

5 little Christmas cakes

Bake them in the oven at 120 C fan / Gas 1 for about 2 hours - this timing really depends on your oven, and you may need to cover the tops with some foil or baking paper to stop them from burning.

allow them to cool on a cooling rack

When they have cooled, wrap them in greaseproof and then foil. I did mine individually and store in a cake tin. You can feed them if you want to.
A simple way to marzipan and ice to follow!

P.S. I was going to do a separate post for Handmade Monday, but as usual I ran out of time! Why not go and visit everyone elses blogs and see what they've been up to?