This is a recipe for "Belgium cake", which as far as I know was made by my great-grandmother. It's a soft, sticky and sweet fruit cake. No, I don't know what it has to do with Belgium.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb mixed soft fruit (dates, apricots, raisins etc.)
• 1/4 lb caster sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 lb unsalted butter
• 1/2 lb self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Cut up the fruit into raisin-sized pieces.
2. Cut the butter into small pieces.
3. Add the fruit, sugar, milk and butter into a saucepan and gently heat and stir until the butter is melted.
4. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.
5. Take the saucepan off the heat and leave until fairly cool. In the first 10 minutes or so, stir every minute to prevent a skin from forming.
6. When you come back, preheat an oven to 140c/285f. If you have a fan oven, reduce that by 10c/15f.
7. Beat the egg in a bowl until the yolk is mixed with the white into a single mixture.
8. Either in the saucepan or in a mixing bowl, use a wooden spoon to combine the mixture with the flour, the bicarb and the egg. Stir for a couple of minutes.
9. Use butter to grease a 2lb baking tin and cut a piece of baking paper to fill the bottom of the tin.
10. Scrape the mixture into the tin, and spread it to fill the corners. A silicon spatula is very useful here.
11. Bake for 1 1/4 hours. Leave the tin to cool before removing the cake.