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
Hi Kim
I feed the cake once with 50-100ml of Irish Whiskey. Brandy would do. Then I wrap it in baking parchment and store it in a cake tin until Christmas week. Three days before I plan to ice the cake I make marzipan https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=165 cover the cake with the marzipan and let this dry out overnight (leave the cake on the kitchen side) before putting it into the larder for a couple of days. Once iced, the cake lives in the cake tin.
hi there,
Thank you for your response! I set about making my cake today and was suprised at the amount of batter I made! (had to swap for bigger bowl when adding fruit) The cake has currently been in just over an hour and the smells are wonderful! I wasnt sure quite how much the cake would rise and my tin wasnt quite 3 inches tall as it is a tin where the base slides out with cake intact, so i popped the rest of the batter in a greased loaf tin! Have just removed the loaf tin and the cake looks fantastic!!! Have sampled a small taste of the cake and is nothing like the horrible stodgy Xmas cakes I am used to!! It was lovely! I am going to have major problems getting it out of the loaf tin, its currently sitting upside down on a wire rack in hope it will drop when cool! But just wanted to say thanks for the recipe and am so looking forward to Xmas when everyone else can sample it!!
One more question though, do I need to feed it any alcohol once it is cool? I absolutely love the taste just how it is, but if I dont feed it some alc, will it go dry and horrible? Also can you recommend the best storage instructions before Xmas? I really dont want it to turn into a dry crusty sponge before Xmas!!
Thanks again!
Kim x
Hi Ruth,
I use medium eggs but I’m sure that large wouldn’t have disastrous results.
Having poured over my usual books for something traditional but easy to do, I’m so relieved to have found this recipe. Can you tell me whether you use large or medium eggs? Thank you.
Hi Nancy,
Yes of course it will. We keep our cake in a cake tin and it lasts for ages in there.
i made this cake a couple of weeks ago and put brandy into the holes i made with a skewer i then wrapped it in a double thinkness of baking parchment and wrapped it in kitchen foil and have kept it in the fridge. will it be fresh enough
Hi Derek
Loved hearing how you adapted the recipe – top marks for courage. It sounds as if it worked out well. I’d love to hear how it tastes when the time comes!
I am sorry that I left the whisky off the list of ingredients. I add about 100ml max sometimes a bit less.
After 46 years married to such a great cook I’ve never competed, I find myself single again. I rashly promised to provide the cake for the family Christmas. I’ve made fruit cakes of the mix it all together and cook type (in the six months alone), and yours looked robust enough for an ignoramus like me to try. I gave it a go, even though I don’t know what ‘light and fluffy’ or ‘curdled’ mean with a butter and sugar mixture (what I got looked as if it could be either or both); I know I won’t get away with putting glace cherries in, so I chopped up some dried apricots; I’m a set honey man, so I don’t have runny and gave a nod to dark cakes by using treacle instead; when I tried making a hollow (in the mixing bowl) it filled itself in. so I added flour till it didn’t; I don’t have an 8″ tin so I bumped up the quantities by 25% and used a 9″ one and calculated the cooking time might be a quarter hour longer. And I don’t knowingly have a skewer, but the first time I tested with a knife, it came out clean, so I wonder if I’ve overcooked.
See what I mean about wanting it robust?
It looks beautiful, with a nice flat top. It smells delicious, all fruity and, well, cakey. I’ll write again in the New Year to tell you what it tastes like and whether it behaves well when cut.
We have a Danny in our family too, but he’ll only get crumbs; he’s a Golden Retriever.
One question, though. How much whisky should I feed it with? My experience to date is from adding it before cooking, so there’s no alcohol left when we eat it. One recipe I read said to warn drivers about the liquor – and I certainly don’t want it to be as hazardous as that! So what do you recommend, please?
Thanks very much.
Derek
Hi Chaletgirl,
Thanks for leaving a comment. Have fun on Sunday.
Have just phoned OH in Asda to get the ingredients for your cake, going to make it with 4 kids and assorted pals on Sunday – thanks for spurring me on!