All-in-One Dark Muscovado Cake

I fancied a rich, dark cake but didn’t want faff and made this using an all in one sponge method, and it worked a treat. Very good on its own, great with natural yogurt, and excellent with a slice of salted butter after a day or two.

It’s quite large, so I cut it in half and froze half in a freezer bag to eat later.

Ingredients
5 medium eggs
225g dark muscovado sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
225g plain flour, plus a little extra
2 tsp baking powder
225g butter at room temperature, plus a little extra to grease the tin
1/4 teaspoon salt
150g sultanas or raisins
1 small cup of rum

I didn’t have any, but some chopped up preserved ginger would be great in this too.

How to make
Grease a 9 inch (23cm) cake tin with butter. If it’s not non-stick, line the base with baking paper.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.

Place the sultanas in a small saucepan with the rum and bring to the boil, simmer for a few minutes and then turn off the heat.

Whisk all the other ingredients together until smooth. Toss the rum soaked sultanas in a tablespoon of flour to coat them (this should stop them sinking) and then stir them in.

Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for around 35 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if it’s ready.

Remove it from the tins after around 5 minutes of cooling. Go round the edge with a knife to make sure none of it has stuck.