Christmas cake in a day...

I have to admit I don't go a bundle on fruit cake -but the rest of the house do, and even though my mum is 'doing Christmas' this year, it's still nice to have one on the side board.

There is absolutely no need to start this thing in August, harbour it in your dresser drawers, feed it lovingly and then spend 8 hours icing the thing...unless you really want to.

I pinched a quick fruit cake recipe off the internet (pretty much an all in one job), bunged it in the oven for an hour and a half and then waited until it was nearly cool to whack a load of icing and kids toys on the top. Mary Berry helped me out with the snowy type icing, the Farmer's Guardian Livestock Market pages made effective ribbon and in the absence of bailer twine, some brown parcel string finished the look. Take that Heston Blumenwhatsit.