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, I wanted to say what a fantastic recipe this is. I made this on Saturday along with my two children, the old fashioned way, ie no electric mixer, as mine is broken, and it turned out beautifully. It smells wonderful, and after giving it two good drinks of Brandy, have wrapped it and put it away for icing nearer Christmas.
I can definitely recommend this recipe for a truly wonderful, moist and luxurious Christmas cake. I printed out this recipe and have added it to my own collection.
Thank you very much.
Hi,
I live in Pakistan, and each year I try out a new Christmas Cake recipe. Your recipe sounds good, and I will definitely give it a try. I have many Muslim friends who love Christmas cake, but are not permitted use of alcohol. Can I make it without the beer? Or if you could recommend a non-alcoholic substitute. Thanks for your help.
Update: We baked the cake yesterday! Because of limited options in the shops here we used more raisins instead of cherries (not to total weight), and I chose an organic ale (beautiful golden colour!) instead of a beer. We also used a tin that was around 8inches by 2.5, and the rest of the mix went in a normal victoria sponge tin. To be honest i am not sure how long we baked them for! We actually ended up putting the larger one back in the oven for 15 mins after we’d taken it out of the tin, it was just a touch underdone, but after that time, it was beautiful!! The smaller cake in the victoria sponge tin was also beautiful, the thinner nature of it makes for more of the edge bits of course, and i love that! It would be very easy to make them in those smaller tins for the easter cake, saves messy cutting! The lightness and fragrance of the organic ale and the mixed spices really came through, it was just delicious! When i make this for xmas (this was a trial run) i will lower the fruit content slightly and up the ‘cakey’ part, maybe that’s my pregnancy talking, but that’s how I fancy making it next time 🙂
Oh and of course we didn’t add any additional alcohol at the end.
Thank you so much for such a beautiful recipe!
Elizabeth xxx
ps and one more tiny change was that as I had to grind the almnd flour myself I had added a couple of tablespoons of icing sugar to the almond in the food processor to stop it getting oily.
Hi, I’ve been looking for an xmas cake recipe for this year, and i have to say this looks perfect!
The only problem is that reading about it has now given me cravings for xmas cake (i’m 6 months pregnant) so i suspect we will be making this tomorrow – without the spirits added at the end – so we can eat it as soon as it’s cooled! hehe
Not being able to add the alcohol and this being my first xmas cake gives me the perfect excuse to do a practise run before I make one nearer xmas!
Thanks for the recipe! I’m about to go and look at your other ones now, though i suspect i might have to go and find some food first! 🙂
Elizabeth xxx
Hello moke.e.boy
This is the only cake that I make and the only cake recipe that I have invented so was delighted to hear that you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for dropping by.
BTW enjoyed looking at your kitesurfing stuff. amazing!
Just to let you know I cooked this for christmas ’07 (my first ever cake) and it went down a storm. I fed it lots of whiskey 🙂
Then my sister surprised me by asking me to bake her wedding cake. So let me just say, not only is this an excelent Christmas cake, it is also a most excelent wedding cake 🙂
I iced it with marzipan and royal icing and spent a couple of evenings carefuly polising it with the back of a knife until it was almost mirror smooth.
There was a funny moment when the happy couple went to cut the cake and the knife wouldn’t go through the icing 🙂 but some wag shouted “The knife must be blunt!” and everyone laughed *phew!!*
So, thanks for the recipe 🙂 and thanks for starting me down the cake making road.
BTW I am a 33 year old and I like to kitesurf, so if I can do it anyone can 🙂
monk.e.boy
Hi Jan
Thank you so much for leaving such a positive comment. This is the only fruit cake that we both like too.
Just had to say this is the BEST Christmas cake I have had. Moist lovely taste. Hightly recommended. I have made two more as it keeps so well and it is a lovely cake to have in store.
I will be watching for further recipes. Well done
Jan
Hi Mildred
Good thinking. I think that I’ll give this a whirl.