I saw a super quick and easy recipe on a Hairy Bikers’ “Mother Knows Best” programme some time ago and decided to try it with a few changes. I’ll give the original first then my adapted version.

Original

Stage 1 – mix together the following:

1 mug of light brown sugar
1 mug of oat bran
1 mug of dried fruit
1 mug of milk

Once mixed leave for a few hours or all day

Stage 2

Stir in 1 mug of self raising flour

Pour into a lined loaf tin and bake for about an hour at 180C / fan 160C / 350F / Gas 4.

The programme never specified the size of mug, but as you can see in the photo below, mine wasn’t especially big. In the following version I’ve given approximate measures.

My adapted version

1 mug of light brown sugar (about 325 – 350g)
1 mug of oat meal (about 325 – 350g)
1 mug of dried fruit and pumpkin seeds (about 325 – 350g)
1 mug of milk (about 425 – 450g)

Mix together and leave for a few hours or all day. I actually left mine overnight.

Notes:

I didn’t have any oat bran, so used oat meal; I doubt if it made much difference.
I wanted to give the finished loaf to a friend who is gluten intolerant so I used GF flour + 1 tsp xanthan gum powder.
I had half a bag of pumpkin seeds in the cupboard, so added them in with the dried fruit for a nice bit of crunch. (It was around 75% dried fruit + 25% seeds) Nuts would work well too, I’m sure.
I stirred in 50g of runny honey, just before it all went in the oven, as above.

Extra

Since posting the above recipe and comments I’ve made the loaf again, but with the following changes and additions:

I replaced the seeds with about a ¼ mug of flaked almonds
Before baking, I put slices of banana on top of the mixture and sprinkled them with Demerara sugar.
As the baked loaf was cooling I brushed the top with a glaze of half water, half honey.

I hope you enjoy this easy but tasty cake. If you want more loaf cake recipes click this link. Meanwhile, below are some that I think you’ll enjoy too. I’d love you to try them: