Cake advice, please!

[Wornoutbear]

Years ago I always made a cake to Delia's Last Minute Christmas cake and it was fine. After not making cakes for ages, I did one last year and it was dreadful. Made a second which was better, but still not good. I made it exactly as I used to, but I now have a fan oven, but I can't see that would make so much difference. So has anyone got a tried and tested (and easy) cake recipe?

You might need to turn the temp down a bit in the fan oven. They can be hotter than a conventional oven and you can end up with a dry cake.

Once you can smell the cake it's ok to open the door and check how it's doing.

The problem with a last minute cake is that you can't cheat and recover a dry cake by feeding it without it being overpoweringly noisy.

I use a BBC Good Food one

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/850633/asyoulikeit-christmas-cake

The best thing about it is you can chose your dried fruit and what you soak it in, I halved the recipe last year which still made a good sized cake, and covered in marzipan sprayed gold, it was yummy!

I've made Nigella's from her Feast book for the last 10 years or so without incident. I do sneak apple in and add perhaps more alcohol than the recipe calls for but it's always worked.

You can turn almost any Christmas cake recipe into a very good last minute cake by doing any of the following:

• Gently simmering the dried fruit in a weak black tea until it plumps up. Or for 30mins and then leave to soak overnight. Drain the fruit before using.

• Do the same, but add sherry or brandy to the tea.

• Do the same, but use stout instead.

• Replace the dried fruit with the same weight (or nearly the same weight) of mincemeat.

There's no reason you can't feed the cake as well, if you want!