Clare's Christmas Cake!!

The season to be jolly will be here before you know it!

This is my Christmas Cake recipe.

But feel free to adapt it and make it your own.

In this week’s vlog I made two Christmas cakes.

(As they can also make great gifts for friends and family)

But the recipe below is for one.

With a 20cm cake tin you should get 12 good slices.

Ingredients

*1kg of dried mixed fruit.

(I used – raisins, sultanas, ginger, orange peel, glace cherries, cassis (black currents) and cranberries.

*150ml Brandy (you will need more to feed the cake over the next few weeks – keep a bottle on standby – hide from any possible drinkers!)

*1 Lemon – zest and juice.

*1 Orange – zest and juice.

*250g Butter – Not salted!

*200g Brown Sugar.

*175g Plain flour – T45 in France.

*100g Flaked almonds.

*100g Ground almonds.

*2 teaspoons of mixed spice.

*1 teaspoon ground cinnamon.

*1 teaspoon vanilla essence.

*1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

*4 Large eggs.

Method

*Wash your hands!!

*Weigh out 1kg of dried mixed fruit into a large saucepan.

Add the zest and juice of your lemon and orange as well as 200g brown sugar, 150ml brandy and your butter – leave it to soften beforehand and roughly cube it.

*Get that pan on the stove and bring it up to a boiling point.

Keep stirring! You don’t want it to stick and burn - reduce it down to a simmer for around 20 minutes.

Line your baking tin (ideally 20cm wide) with baking parchment paper.

Take the mixture off the heat and leave to cool.

Pre heat your oven to 130 oC or 226 oF – go make a cup o tea or a nice glass of wine!

*Decant your fruit mixture into a mixing bowl and add 175g plain flour, 100g flaked almonds, 100g ground almonds, 2 tsp mixed spice, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp vanilla essence, and 4 large eggs!

Mix it well – I did mine by hand but by all means use a mixer just ensure there are no pockets of flour hidden in the mixture.

Don’t forget to make a wish!

*Tip the mixture into your lined baking tin and level the top off. Bake in the centre of the oven for 2 hours. To test the cake is cooked insert a skewer into the cake (centre and outers) if any mixture sticks to the skewer put the cake back into the oven for another ten mins or so and keep pulling out checking and if required repeating the process until the skewer comes out clean – then the cake has finished cooking.

*Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool down for a while in the tin by pulling the sides of the parchment paper up. Once it is no longer the temperature of the sun remove from the tin and place onto a cooling rack and leave until completely cold.

*Transfer your cakes to a storage tin lined with parchment paper. With a skewer make holes into the top of cake fairly deeply! Using brandy or your chosen poison slowly drizzle two tablespoons of alcohol over your cake.

*Top the cake loosely with parchment paper and store in a cool dry place. Bring your cake out weekly and feed it to tablespoons of alcohol.

Keep doing this until a week before Christmas where you can then decorate your cake with marzipan, royal icing and colourful festive decorations.

(Join us over the festive season to see how I decorate our cakes)

Happy Baking All!!

Chef Clare x