Last minute Christmas cake recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Christmas, Desserts | 297 comments
Over the years we have tried various Christmas cake recipes but the best by far was the one that we made last year, a week before Christmas. We wanted a cake packed with fruit but not a dark heavy traditional type of Christmas cake. We’d had to force down too many slices of these in the past.
My Mother used to make us these and bring one each Christmas. Then she decided to buy them. These were worse and not disguised by being fed with lashings of brandy. We’d cut a few slices at Christmas, give her half the cake to take home at the end of her stay and the rest would linger in the larder for weeks and eventually been tossed out with the rubbish. We tried feeding one particularly disappointing one to the birds one year, and even they turned their beaks up at it.
“Make a Christmas cake if you want. But I won’t be eating it,” said Danny, settling in a large armchair to watch the rugby. Faced with this challenge I was determined to bake a cake that even D couldn’t resist.
I skimmed though all our books and found a recipe for a Christmas cake that sounded lighter than usual and tinkered with the ingredients. I replaced the darker ingredients, molasses, stout and muscavado sugar with lighter alternatives. We didn’t cut it until Boxing Day, when I spotted Danny sneaking into the kitchen for a second slice. Slightly paler than a traditional cake, it was packed with fruit, tasted wonderful and kept well. The last slice was tucked into my lunchbox at the end of January.
If you fancy trying a more traditional recipe, here are two links to sites with Christmas cake recipes that look good:
There is a Mary Berry recipe here http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/apricotandbrandychri_77766.shtml
Delia Smith has a range of recipes here http://www.deliaonline.com/search/?qx=christmas+cake
Last minute Christmas cake recipe:
Equipment:
8″ round cake tin (4″ deep), baking parchment.
Ingredients:
- 450g raisins
- 285g sultanas
- 110g currants
- 180g glacé cherries (halved)
- 110g ground almonds
- 225g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 225g soft brown sugar (pale)
- 285g plain flour (sieved)
- zest of a lemon
- 5 eggs
- 2 tsp of mixed spice
- 2 tbsp of pale runny honey
- 200 ml of beer (I used Speckled Hen)
- 4 tbsp of Irish Whiskey/Whisky/ Brandy – when the baked cake has cooled
Method:
- Preheat oven to 160c (140 fan)
- Line the base and sides of the 8″ cake tin with a double thickness of baking parchment. Cut the paper an inch deeper than the tin so that it is sticking above the top rim.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (I use an electric mixer for this).
- Beat the eggs well and add them gradually to the mixture, a little at a time, beating them well. If the mixture curdles beat in a teaspoon of the flour before continuing.
- Using a tablespoon, gently fold in the flour, lemon zest and spices.
- Fold in the beer and honey and stir gently.
- Add the fruit and ground almonds and stir gently.
- Transfer the mixture to the cake tin and make a hollow in the centre of the mixture (roughly 2″ wide and 1″ deep).
- Bake in the centre of a preheated oven for about 2.5 hours depending on your oven, it may need a little longer. Check that it is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle – this should be clean when removed. The centre should feel firm and springy if touched.
- Turn out onto a wire rack. When it is cold, make a few holes in the top and bottom of the cake (using a skewer) and feed the cake with the Irish whiskey (brandy would be fine as an alternative).
- Wrap the cake in baking parchment and store in a tin or cover with foil until you need it.
- If you would like to make your own marzipan – it’s very easy and so much better than bought. My recipe is here
Tips and tricks:
- If you are going to cover the cake with marzipan and ice it, put the marzipan on a few days before it is iced so the surface of the marzipan can dry. Otherwise the marzipan can bleed through and stain the icing.
- I sliced off the top of my cake before putting on the marzipan so the top would be flat. Or use the base as the top.
Leave a reply
Dear Fiona, (cottage Smallholder extraordinare)
Thanks again for your lovely website – a three-year thread on this particular topic shows just how good you and your readers are. Forget Delia! Good bye Mary Berry – we have all the answers here with you.
I’ll be making mine in a deep square tin. No marzipan. No icing. Just fruity, boozy glorious Christmas cake! All our friends from overseas love it, and Ooop North, where some of my family come from, it goes down a treat with a slice of Wensleydale cheese.
Jane, fruit cakes are very adaptable, and ovens vary, so times in recipes are only guidelines. If you change the tin size, the cooking time will definitely change, but it just means you need to check it early and often.
If you’re baking 2 smaller ones, they’ll take less time. So check after an hour, an hour and a half, and so on, until they passes the skewer test. When I baked my cakes yesterday I used my mother-in-law’s recipe, which is for a size of tin I don’t have. She told me to bake it for 4 hours (!) at 120C, but when I checked, they weren’t cooked, so I just carried on until they were, about 5 hours for the larger one!
Hi Jane,
When you bake your cakes in the loaf tins, all you need to di is keep an eye on them, the colour isn’t dark like a usual christmas cake so testing with a wooden skewer in the middle to see if it comes out clean. I’m not sure if your aware of these two tips so i’ll mention them anyway, when you turn the oven on, place an oven proof container, such as a loaf tin, 1/4 – 1/2 filled with water, this prevents anything you bake from drying out, also wrap brown paper or news paper around the outer of your cake/loaf tins, secured with string, this is to protect the outer of your cakes from burning or becoming too brown whilst the middle is still cooking.
I’ve not baked this cake in a laof tin as yet but it’s bound to be quicker than in the size tin Fiona used. I did mine in a 12″ round tin and it took a good few hours, I also placed water on the bottom of the oven and wrapped my cake tin in paper. The cake turned out perfect and was absolutely delicious :o)
Hope you get on ok with yours.
x
I am a Brit living in Canada and want to make this amazing sounding cake. I want to use a 9″x5″ and 8″x4″ loaf pan but could you tell me how long to bake the cake for? Thanks.
Hi Jane
I just don’t know. All that I can guarantee is that it works in my cake tin that I point to in the recipe. Sorry!
Fruit soaking in brandy,tomorrow i will make this cake if it turns out well i will be making ten more for family and friends.I will let you know how it goes.This is my first ever xmas cake .thanks for the recipe kind regaurds Linda
Hello Katrina,
Many thanks for your birthday wishes. The celebrations have now come and gone and the cake was an amazing success. The party was a small intimate gathering of 10 people including my good lady andI. As a result, I now have 3 orders for Christmas cakes. That is just under 40% of the guests, so that is what I call success. It is simply a great recipe.
As per your request, nothing would please me more than to post a pic or two, but I don’t appear to heve the facility to do so. Perhaps there is an e-mail address to which I can send them? Then you could post them for me as I am sure you have more administrative privileges than the rest of us.
Once again, thank you for the birthday wishes and the fantastic recipe.
Kindest regards,
Tom
I like the sound of this cake and would like to try it, how long would you bake the cake for if you used this amount in 2 smaller cake tins?
Hi Chris
Sorry but I have no idea 🙂 All I know that this mix/tin works. Tin came from Tesco basics range and was v cheap!
Hi Tom…. isn’t it an excellent cake!!!! I was so impressed with it, although unlike you I wasn’t able to resist temptation :o/ but because it was so delicious and everybody liked it it is now the official family recipe to be used through generations to come :o) I’m going to write a little diary to hand down with it starting with my search for a good recipe and this website :o) so hopefully this web site/page will be going for many years to come! I’ve recommended this page & it’s recipe to everyone I know who bakes cakes at Christmas.
Happy 40th Birthday for next week Tom…. I hope you have a great celebration and everyone enjoys the cake! … post a pic for us all to see yea?
Take care… K
Hi there,
I just had to leave a comment. I just took this fruit cake out of the oven late last night and I am lost for words. A beautiful perfectly level hazelnut brown sweet smelling miracle. I searched the web high and low to find a recipe for a fruit cake that isn’t as rich as the traditional Christmas cake.
My 40th birthday is next week so I wanted to bake a nice cake and as soon as I saw this recipe I thought “this is for me”. I used a coring tool and removed a sample from the centre of the cake and I am delighted with the texture and it has cooked perfectly. Sample back in place now and once iced, no one will be any the wiser. It will be a true test for me not to make a start on it before the big day.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I will not use another one now. I work as an engineer at sea, and when home I love to bake as it is therapeutic. Even more so when you find a great recipe which incorporates your favourite beer.
Keep up the good work, and thanks again.
Tom
Hi
This recipe sounds lush I have never made a fruit cake before and am relatively new to baking. I do not like dark fruit cakes so this sounds perfect!! I love the marzipan layer my mum puts through her simnel cake do you think this would work with this recipe or even using marzipan chunks mixed through? Can’t wait to have a go at cake this weekend!!
Many thanks