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.
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This fruit cake recipe would make an ideal base for a Simnel Cake for Easter! If made in the next week, then left another week to ‘rest’, the ake could be decorated with marzipan a day or two before Easter Sunday. I use a flat layer of marzipan on top of the cake with 11 small marzipan balls round the edge to represent the Apostles. A quick blast with the blow torch (or pop under the grill) to brown the edges finishes it off nicely!
Hi Michelle
Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment! I had the last slice of our Christmas cake yesterday.
Glad that the recipe worked for you.
Hi there
I am sorry about commenting so late. I live in Sweden but am originally am from South Africa and we also have a Christmas Cake tradition. I baked this here for my husband and his family and they really enjoyed it! It was the first time they had eaten a christmas cake and it was my first attempt at baking one. It was delicious and wonderful to have a break from the Swedish tradtions here and have something that reminded me of home.
thank you!
Hello Laura
Thank you so much for dropping by and leaving a comment. I have a slice every afternoon at work – a real treat!
I made your Christmas cake this Christmas, and it was beautiful. Very moist, not too rich, but very very tasty. Thanks!
Hi Nancy
I don’t like royal icing. It looks good but is too hard to eat easily.
the only complaint i had was the royal icing was a bit hard but the next time i make it i will add a bit more glycerin
Hi Nancy
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving a comment.
I’m so pleased that the recipe worked for you. We love the cake too.
Hi Mildred,
Thanks for that! I love marzipan and Danny always donates his to me. We didn’t get around to making the stollen this Christmas but I will be making it soon and will be interested to see if Danny will enjoy it then!
Hi Fi, I dread to think what goes into the supermarket marzipan, to make it ‘white’. For ‘homemade’ marzipan I am sure it depends on the eggs based on what the hens are fed on. When ours were given a sweetcorn for a treat, the egg yolks were very yellow.
Thinking about it, our ice cream is sometimes quite white, then another batch will be very yellow, depending purely on the eggs used. Same with custard.
I like to SEE yellow marzipan, custard, ice cream etc (and I will even use a drop of yellow colouring if the marzi is being used for a Battenburg Cake!) but as long as it’s homemade, it doesn’t really matter what shade it is – it’s going to be delicious!
covered my cake with marzipan and left it for three days for the marzipan to dry i then covered it in icing and i then put royal icing on it and made it look like snow i then finished it off with a ribbon round the sides and a Santa and a snowman for decoration but i was curious to what it would taste like and i must admit it was moist and very nice tasted i have got three orders from the family for next year thank you so much for such a wonderful recipe