Wedding cake

Have just made this wedding cake and it was delicious, it was inspired by Angela Day's Macadamia Nut Fruitcake recipe, but I removed the McNuts and added loads of dates and dried apricots. I also snipped up some dried mango and added that. I used half the sugar and twice the brandy.

• Get 3 kgs of fruitcake mix, soak in stacks of brandy (get Klipdrif, aka Worcestersous!) about half a bottle. Add 2 small packets of dates, the rest of the dried apricots (after you've eaten half the packet) and some dried mangoes. Soak it all overnight. Add maraschino cherries if they're your favourite.
• 500g butter
• 400g soft brown sugar
• beat together til soft and fluffy
• add 12 eggs, alternating with
• 750 ml flour
• 20 ml baking powder, 20 ml mixed spice
• (add extra cinnamon and cloves because they're the nicest, also grated nutmeg for calmness)
• I don't add salt, there's enough in the butter. Add a tsp or two of vanilla essence if you like.
• Line your bottom tier cake tin with two layers of baking paper, and mix the fruit (which must feel soft) into the dough with a huge wooden spoon. Bake it in a VERY cool oven, around 105 degrees C is fine. There'll be tons of fruit and very little dough. You have to smell it to see if it's baked and test it with the clean fork test. Remember to measure so each of your tiers turn out the same thickness. I make this recipe twice so that I have one extra middle tier cake for us to keep (munch, munch).

Whoops, sorry I put the preparation together with the ingredients. After you've finished baking the tiers, let them cool down completely and wrap them in stacks of baking paper and tin foil. Give them a tot of brandy every week (more if they seem thirsty) and keep the cake for at least a month before icing it, three months is better. Always spread it with apricot jam before you add a thinnish layer of marzipan. The plastic icing is only for decoration it tastes pretty ghastly. The black icing dye works very well, the black tier looked (and felt!) like a tyre.

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