Yesterday was "Day 1" of Christmas preparation in our house.  I decided to start baking some Stollen to freeze for eating when the "season" hits us.  My mom’s terrific Stollen recipe calls for 500g of cake mix (mixed fruit for fruit cakes and the like) and so I duly headed off to Waitrose to see what I could get.  Always conscious of what goes into our mouths, I read the ingredients on the back of the bag.  Currants, raisins, sultanas, candied peel (all sounds fine so far), and hydrogenated vegetable oil.  What is the point of adding that to some dried fruit?  I just don’t get it.  Needless to say, the bag of fruit mix was unceremoniously dumped back on the shelf, and I bought a selection of raisins, sultanas, dried cherries and prunes to make up my own, better, fruit cake mix.  None of these contain hydrogenated vegetable oil, of course.

My fruit mix has been soaking in armagnac overnight, and the baking will start today.  Stand by for the recipe and pictures!