I HOPE you’ll indulge me in a little story before I get to this week’s recipe.

It’s a story of how recipes came to be and why a recipe can mean so much more than any other, a recipe that can remind you of a place or connect you to people from the past or those you haven’t seen in a long time.

Cut And Come Again Cake has been made for many a year within our rugged borders of Yorkshire. This cake is a through-and-through Yorkshire cake which will always have you coming back for more because its that good!

How could you not love a cake called Cut and Come Again? It’s deliciously moist and fruity and begs you to cut another slice, cut another slice I say... at risk of sounding like Fred Elliot the butcher from Corrie.

I presume years ago if you called at your grandparents’, which we used to do at the weekends, they would offer you a cup of tea and add ‘’would you like a slice of cake I’ve just baked?”.

When did you last hear those magical words? Unfortunately, nowadays you visit the supermarket and buy pre-packed cakes.

It’s no wonder most people can’t be bothered to get the mixing bowl out and bake a cake, which is a real shame, because soon the skill of cake making might be lost through the generations.

No wonder cake stalls at local fetes are the first to sell out.

In Yorkshire it’s a tradition to eat our fruit cakes with Wensleydale cheese to balance out the sweetness, and this is not a modern fad but a staple bound by heritage. Come Christmas Day, ask any Northerner about this natural pairing.

The cheese, I guess, helps offset the dryness often found in a Yorkshire fruited Christmas cake, which often lacks the alcohol that’s needed to feed the cake.

A true Yorkshire man, goes the saying, is a bit like a Scotsman with all generosity squeezed out of him.

When I was growing up, Monday was always baking day and Friday ‘the big shop’.

You could always tell what day of the week it was by what we were having for tea, but every day we would eat well.

Sounds like a bygone Idyll doesn’t it? But we always had fun, and felt safe leaving the back door unlocked when popping down to the corner shop.

We were allowed to mess around on the roads with our bikes, and played footy and cops and robbers until it got dark.

Enough of this reminiscing, I think I need to cut another slice before its all gone!

Cut and Come Again Yorkshire Cake Recipe

Ingredients

340g/12oz self-raising flour, sifted

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon ground nut meg

175g/6oz butter, cold from the fridge

110g/4oz soft brown sugar

225g/8oz mixed dried fruits, to include half cherries

3 eggs, lightly beaten

170ml/tablespoons milk

Method

1. Line and grease and 8 inch/21cm cake tin with parchment baking paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, mix spice and nutmeg and mix them together well.

3. Rub in the cold butter so it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

4. Add the sugar and dried fruits and mix well until all the fruits have been covered by the mixture.

5. Add the beaten eggs and milk and stir well with a wooden spoon, so everything is combined and picked up from the bottom of the mixing bowl.

6. Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared cake tin and level the top of the cake with a spatula.

7. Bake your cake in the middle of the preheated oven 180c/Gas Mark 4 for around one hour, until golden brown in colour and a skewer comes out cleanly.

8. Once baked, allow the cake to stand in the tin for five minutes, before transferring onto a cooling wire.

9. Best eaten with a wedge of Wensleydale cheese and a cup of Yorkshire tea.