Dundee Cake

My granny was famous for her Dundee Cake, a rich golden cake discreetly studded with glace cherries, swelling regally under its spiraling decorative paving of whole blanched almonds. My Aunt Mary, Granny’s youngest daughter, inherited her mother’s baking genes, and every year she graciously makes a Christmas Pudding and a Dundee Cake for my family. Mary’s pudding is always excellent, but we can’t wait to cut her Dundee Cake, so dense and rich and full of flavor, temptingly wrapped in grease