This recipe, now over 50 years old was sent to me from a viewer who said it had been a favourite in her kids lunch boxes . Canned tomato soup is really quite sweet, and indeed a tomatoes are a fruit – so using canned soup as a basis for a fruit cake isn’t really all that odd. It’s delicious – do give it a go.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1tsp mixed spice
• 1 cup sugar
• 1½ cups mixed dried fruit
• 210g can tomato soup
• 125g butter, melted

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line the base and sides of a loaf tin.
2. Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl and stir in the dried fruit. Make a well in the centre.
3. Mix tomato soup and butter together and stir in gently.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 1¼ - 1½ hours until golden. Decorate with butter icing.