Christmas cake baking slowly, aromas of fruit, spice and booze wafting through the kitchen – nothing signals that Christmas is on the horizon more. This year is a first for an Everhot baked Christmas cake so I thought I would give the recipe on the Everhot website a try to show you the results. The mixture makes one 8 inch and one 6 inch round cake, but I decided to make a rectangular 12 inch x 6 inch cake instead. Smellovision would be good as the picture does not do justice to the delicious aroma. The decorated cake photo will follow in December.
Ingredients
- 300g sultanas
- 200g raisins
- 100g currants
- 100g craisins (dried cranberries)
- 100g stoned chopped prunes or apricots (I used apricots)
- 120ml medium sherry + 4 tbsp sherry to finish
- zest and juice of 1 orange
- zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
- 100g glace cherries – halved
- 50g walnut pieces
- 50g pecans, chopped
- 250g unsalted butter
- 200g soft, dark brown sugar
- 250g plain flour
- 1 level tsp cinnamon
- ¼ level teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
- ½ level teaspoon mixed spice
- 5 large eggs, beaten
- 2 tbsp apricot jam
- 1 tbsp black treacle
Method
- Make sure you set the bottom oven 100ºC at least an hour before you want to cook your cake. Place the shelf between the middle and bottom set of runners.
- Grease and double line the tins with greaseproof paper.
- Place all the dried fruit into a large pan on the simmer plate and add the sherry, lemon and orange juice and grated rind. Stir over a gentle heat until mixture starts to steam. Turn into bowl, cool, cover and leave overnight.
- Add the cherries and nuts to the fruit mixture and combine.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Sieve all the dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Add 4 tbsp of dry ingredients to the creamed sugar and butter mixture.
- Gradually beat in the eggs adding a little more flour if the mixture starts to curdle. You can use a food mixer for this.
- Fold in the remaining flour. Next beat in the apricot jam and treacle with a wooden spoon.
- Next, fold in the fruit and nut mixture and combine thoroughly.
- Turn into the lined cake tin/s and bake until cooked. (The cooking times of rich fruit cakes vary enormously – a very rough guide is around an hour an inch. Test with skewer and when cooked remove from oven. The large rectangular cake I baked took around 8 hours.
- Sprinkle the remaining sherry over cakes whilst still hot and do not remove the greaseproof paper. Wrap completely with clean tea towels and leave to cool in tin for 24 hours.
- Remove cake from tin and wrap in two layers of foil, ensuring they are airtight. Leave until you are ready to decorate, feeding with alcohol depending how boozy and moist you like your cake. I will be decorating with nuts and will update once I have done it.