Light Fruit cake studded with Marzipan

Easter has come and gone but the memory of the Simnel cake lingers on, I created this cake so that a cake studded with dried fruit, orange peel and marzipan can be enjoyed throughout the year. In many ways it is an easier cake to bake, I always find the disc of marzipan in a traditional Simnel cake makes judging the baking time a bit tricky.
I make my own candied orange peel click here for the recipe. Recently I have taken to putting the peel straight from the saucepan along with some of the syrup, into a kilner jar, I top it up with Amaretto DiSaronno liquer, I now find it an essential ingredient in so much of my baking.

For this recipe you will need,
250g of light muscovado sugar
250g of unsalted butter
4 eggs
150g of plain flour
100g of Self Raising flour
100g of ground almonds
500g of dried fruit, see note
100g of candied orange peel, chopped
150g of marzipan Click here for the recipe
The zest of 1 orange
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of salt 
3 tablespoons of Amaretto liquer to soak the fruit or the same amount of cold tea.

Note about the dried fruit: The selection is up to you but I like to use a combination of, golden cherries, lexia raisins and golden sultanas. Dried sour cherries are also good.
The night before making this cake soak the dried fruit in the liquer or tea if using. If you are in a hurry, place the dried fruit in a bowl with the liquer or tea and give it 1 minute in a microwave oven to get the process going.
Begin by creaming together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of the ground almonds with each egg. Mix thoroughly before adding the sifted flours, the spices and salt. Finally fold in the soaked fruit, orange zest and the marzipan cut up into chunks the size of glacé cherries. Transfer the mix to either 3 loaf tins measuring 16cm by 10cm or 1 large loaf tin 23cm by 13cm and 1 tin 16cm by 10cm. Smooth the tops and bake in a low oven 140C for 1hour 30 minutes for the smaller tins and 1 hour 45 minutes for the larger tin. A wooden skewer pushed into the centre of the cake should come out cleanly when the cake is fully baked. When the cakes are fully cool, remove from the tins and store in a sealed container. These cakes store well for up to two weeks and if you can avoid eating them for a few days the flavour enhances over time.