My Traditional Style Christmas Cake

Christmas cakes are made in many different ways, but generally they are variations on the classic fruitcake. They can be light, dark, moist, dry, heavy, spongy etc. They are made in many different shapes, with frosting, royal icing, a dusting of icing sugar or plain. The spices and dried fruits in the cake are supposed to represent the exotic eastern spices brought by the three Wise Men to the newborn King! The fruit is all soaked overnight in the brandy, in a covered bowl, before use.

I always make three cakes – one for Christmas Day and two to eat every day for tea until then!

My Ingredients:

150g raisins

125g stoned dates

125g sultanas

100g glace cherries

100ml brandy or whiskey

(all the above are soaked together overnight)

225g real butter

extra butter for greasing

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

grated rind of 1 lemon & 1 orange

2tbls black treacle

225g plain flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp mixed spice

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground clove

50g ground almonds

50ml brandy or whiskey extra

My Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C (300°F), Gas mark 2. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line it with greaseproof paper. Wrap some Newspaper around the outside and tie it with string. This will help the outside of the cake from browning too much during the cooking and prevent it from drying out.

2. Beat together, in a bowl, the sugar & butter until creamy. Gradually add the eggs, dusting a little of the flour in with each egg added. Add the black treacle & grated fruit rinds and mix well.

3. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, spices and the almonds into the bowl of soaked fruit. Stir all of this together, mixing well.

4. Fold the fruit mix into the egg mix, stirring evenly. Spoon the completed mix into the cake tin.

5. Bake in the centre of the oven for 3 hours. If it is browning a little too much cover it loosely with tinfoil. Cook for another ½ hour. The cake is cooked when a fine skewer, inserted into the centre, comes out clean. 

Make holes all over the warm cake with a skewer and spoon the extra 50ml alcohol over the holes until it has all soaked in. Leave the cake to cool in the tin. When it’s cold, remove it from the tin, peel off the lining paper, then wrap first in clean greaseproof paper and then in foil.

A small amount of brandy, sherry or whiskey (depending on your favourite tipple) should be poured onto the cake every week until Christmas. This process is called “feeding the cake” and you have to make sure that you turn the cake over each week, when you pour another little bit of your favourite tipple over it. This ensures that all that lovely alcohol penetrates to the very middle of the Christmas cake and definitely creates that “Yum!” factor on Christmas Day. :)

zack