Christmas Cake

This is a rich fruit cake, suitable for use as a Christmas cake. This is the basic recipe that I have used for family Christmas for quite a few years (although I don’t make this every year).

The same basic recipe is in Delia’s Book of Cakes, and online. I’ll add some notes on my personal alterations at the bottom.

Ingredients

• 450g currants
• 175g sultanas
• 175g raisins
• 50g glacé cherries, rinsed & chopped
• 50g candied peel, chopped (“dried mixed fruit”, 900g can be used instead or the last five ingredients)
• 3 tbs brandy (100ml), or any brown spirit (brandy, rum, whisky)
• 225g unsalted butter
• 225g soft brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 225g plain flour
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 0.25 tsp nutmeg
• 0.5 tsp mixed spice
• 50g almonds, chopped (or more)
• 1 dsp black treacle
• zest 1 lemon
• zest 1 orange

Optional: 110g blanched almonds for a no icing topping.

20cm round loose bottom tin, or 18cm square. Greased and lined; leave extra paper around outside to +2” height.

Soak all the fruit and peel in brandy overnight.

Preheat oven to 140C.

Beat sugar and butter to pale and fluffy. Beat eggs separately and add to mix a spoon at a time.

Sift flour, salt and spices. Fold into mix (carefully: no raising agent used!).

Mix fruit, nuts, treacle and zests. Fold in to mix. Put into tin.

Optional: if not going to ice or top, put blanched almonds on top now.

Make a cartouche (cut hole in centre) to sit on top of outer wrap. This is a round of greaseproof paper, slightly larger than the diameter of the cake tin (so, 22cm or so). Bake for 4 hours, without opening the door. Can take up to 45 mins longer.

Allow to cool, which will take a few hours, then wrap in parchment, feed with more spirits when desired. You can do this weekly for a couple of months (traditionally from “Stir Up Sunday”, which is in the middle of November, to a week before Christmas, but several months is fine).

Icing

• 1 tbs apricot jam
• 1 tbs armagnac
• 350g marzipan
• 350g rollable icing

Heat jam & brandy to dissolve the jam, paint on top of the cake.

Roll out the marzipan, put on cake. Roll out icing, put on marzipan. Make decorations from any extra. Decorate with silver balls if you really have to.

Make your own marzipan, it is very much better than store bought.

Nut Topping

For icing haters. It’s a bit tricky if you love marzipan but hate icing.

• 45 pecan halves
• 15 whole brazils
• 16 walnut halves
• 1 tbs apricot jam
• 2 tbs brandy

Lightly toast nuts for 10 mins under grill. Watch at all times. Cool.

Heat and dissolve the jam in the brandy, and paint on cake. Decorate with the nuts. Paint with the rest of the glaze.

Notes

In my experience, currants are the most likely to come with pips, and I really, really hate pips in my cake. So feel free to change the proportions of dried fruit. I also don’t really care for glacé cherries. Prunes and dried figs make good and interesting substitutes. I really love to have angelica in the mix; it is possible to find packets of candied peel including angelica, which have a much better flavour than the pre-chopped varieties. But you have to chop them yourself.

Switching from brandy to rum or whisky makes a very subtle difference. It becomes more interesting if you use a spiced rum, or a peaty whisky. I’d advise being careful with, for example, Laphroaig; just use it for one feeding, and a blended whisky for the rest.