Christmas Customs
Traditional Christmas Cake Recipe

10 oz currants
6 oz sultanas

3 oz raisins

3 oz dark natural glace cherries

3oz mixed chopped peel - Cut your own or use ready cut

Grated rind of 1 lemon

Grated rind of 1 orange

2 tablespoons of whisky, brandy, rum or sherry

4 eggs - room temperature

6 oz butter - room temperature

6 oz soft brown sugar (or caster sugar if you have none)

3 ½ oz of self raising flour (use all plain if you have no SR flour, this cake is not intended to rise, but be level.)

3 ½ oz of plain flour

2 oz ground almonds

1½ teaspoons of mixed spice (this should contain cloves, cinnamon etc)

1 tablespoon golden syrup or corn syrup

Optional 2oz walnuts or blanched almonds chopped.

Optional 2 oz chopped dried apricots

The quantities in this fruit cake recipe must be baked in a deep Round 8 inch tin or Square 7 inch tin.

Prepare these things first.

1. Before you mix up the cake, SOAK the dried fruit and the halved cherries in the alcohol for about 4-8 hours before using it and also remove your 6oz butter and 4 eggs from the fridge to bring them to room temperature about 2 hours before cake making begins.  Sometimes I just put all the fruit in a screw top jar and shake it every day for about a week or two. The soaking helps plump and hydrate the fruit.

2. Heat oven to 140 degrees Celsius or Gas mark 1 or 275 degrees Fahrenheit

3. Butter your tin type and double line it and butter it again with 2 circles of greaseproof paper and an inner band of paper.

4. Outside the tin add a double band of brown paper that rises 2 inches or so above the tin. Tie with string.

5. Place the tin ready on a flat pizza or other baking sheet – this helps in removing it from the oven.

I bake this rich fruit cake for 3 hours in my oven using the ordinary section, not the fan section of my electric cooker oven. Fan ovens can over dry cakes of this type which require long slow cooking to help the flavour and colour develop.

This same recipe is baked for 4 hours in my mother’s oven which is gas fired. So oven timings will vary.  But don’t look at this cake before 3 hours has passed.  I have no idea how long it would take in an Aga so if someone tries it in one please let me know.

Test with a skewer and bake the Xmas cake another 10 minutes before testing again.  A cooked cake is evenly raised and should be moving slightly from the tin sides. The singing hum stops.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin.  The next day remove the paper wrap and make some skewer holes on the underside.  Pour over 2 tablespoons of alcohol.  I use sherry or any good spirit available.  Do this about every 5 days for several weeks.  Each time wrap the cake in double greaseproof paper and then tinfoil and store in a tin or plastic container.

You can either eat the fruit cake immediately as it is or keep feeding the cake for a month once or twice a week until you are ready to decorate.  You can add almond paste and finally icing or fondant.  Or instead use a simple glazed topping of crystallised fruits or nuts and encase in large ribbon band.  Warn drivers of the alcohol content of the Christmas cake, but otherwise ENJOY it.

Click here to read my Modelling Paste recipe to make figures and flowers.  Alternatively, decorate the cake exceptionally quickly with glace fruits and an apricot jam glaze made from heating 3 tablespoons of apricot jam with 2 tablespoons of brandy or sherry, as shown in this example.  You could also use a quality selection of various nuts such as brazil nuts, pecans, almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts in rows or circles.