Or should I say it will be in my Dad’s house on Father’s day. The last two Father’s Day I have sent my Dad a very nice cake through Fortnum and Mason, and he has enjoyed them very much.  The unwrapping of a Fortnum and Mason box which included tea fit for a King and let us not forget a Queen along with a delicious marmalade dundee cake with a gold greeting card inscribed with a personal message had never happened before in mandycharlie’s  parents home so you can imagine just how tickled pink he was by that idea.  So the next year on Father’s day I repeated it, and he was just as enchanted.  This year I am home so I can make my own – although I am not sure if he will be just a little bit sad about that idea, I’ll have to send him a random box of F & M’s finest cake during the year if he is.

But what to choose to bake him?  As soon as I saw Delia’s Sticky Prune and Date Cake  I knew it was the one, the combination of a goodly amount of four fruits, prunes, dates, currants and sultanas warmed with condensed milk and butter and then with the addition of a generous scoop of marmalade in the mix and also having a thick coating of sticky orangey marmalade on the top, what was not to love.

Firstly weigh all the fruits, butter and condensed milk and warm; don’t you just love the flat scales we have these days where we can pop whichever pan or bowl we are using and weigh straight into it. Next warm up and then let gently simmer for three minutes not a second more, stirring nearly all of the time to prevent it catching on the bottom. It turns into this glorious  burnished toffee sticky concoction. Then let it cool for half an hour which is vitally important.  The raising agent in this cake is bicarbonate of soda and this works by releasing gas as it warms up, through heat. So if you mix the dry ingredients into a warm hot sticky mess the cake rise will happen while you are still mixing it in the bowl and not as you want it baking in the oven.

Bake it for nearly two hours on a low light.

Soon you will have this. I burnished it with thick cut orange marmalade and packed it in I hope a pretty way. I’ll include a box of my favourite tea and a hand made card with gold lettering..

And hopefully he will even cut me a slice.