Vegan mixed fruit cake

I wanted to start making cakes again and I had come up with this recipe for a long time now. I tried it finally and it came out very well. Since I was using dried Blueberries and Apricots, I cooked them in water to make it soft and then added to this recipe. I felt it is more tastier this way. If you have excess liquid after cooking it, don't waste it. Use it along with carrot juice or you can drink it just like that.

If you don't want to make this a vegan cake you can use milk instead of carrot juice and 1 egg instead of the banana.

My advice is invest in a Silicone bake ware set if you are into baking. They are great. You don't even have to grease them and clean up is a breeze.

Vegan mixed fruit cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Carrot juice
1 small Banana
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 teaspoons double acting baking powder
1 cup Sugar
1 cup fresh blueberries (Blueberries and apricot cooked well inwater and drained)
1 cup dried and cut apricots
1 tsp Fresh lemon peel
1 tsp Orange juice
1 tsp Vanilla essence
1 tsp Mix fruit essence

1. Preheat oven to 370*F. Use a non stick square pan or line a baking dish with butter paper or you can spray a non-stick spray on your baking dish
2. In a large bowl, stir together all the wet ingredients except the cooked fruit.
3. In another bowl, stir together the dry ingredients and the cooked fruit.
4. Now add the dry ingredients to the wet slowly.
5. Mix gently.
6. Bake for 30 minutes or until done. If you insert a tooth pick in the middle and it has to come out clean..