Christmas Cake

Christmas Cake is a rich, dark fruitcake, which is also commonly used for christenings, weddings and other important celebrations.  It keeps beautifully, improving with age, and can be kept for a year or so, well wrapped, in a cool dark cupboard, or for several years in a freezer.

You may recall that we used the top layer of our wedding cake (October 2008) for Tabitha's baptism cake in December 2010.  I simply re-covered it with white icing - you can see pictures HERE and HERE.  It is traditional to save the top tier of a wedding cake for the baptism of the first baby, although many couples these days, who don't plan on having a baby right away, eat the cake to celebrate their first wedding anniversary instead. 

I have made one or two rich fruit cakes each year for Christmas since I moved out of home, around seven years ago, and I have also made a few for celebrations, such as the christening of my little cousin, Georgia Lily, several years ago (I decorated the cake with white icing and lilies made of white sugar).

Because the cakes keep so well, they are perfect to have on hand during the busy Christmas period - inevitably, lots of friends and family drop around for a Champagne or coffee, to catch up and exchange gifts.  You only need a small slice of the cake, since it is rich, and it will happily sit in an airtight tin for a few weeks, disappearing slice by slice.

I recommend making your rich fruit cake at least a month in advance, and three or so months is ideal.  Once cooked, wrap the cake well (either cloth and foil, or foil then in a plastic freezer bag, or cling film, or whatever you think best) and store in a cool, dark cupboard.  No need for the fridge - if you are saving it for more than a year, it's best to wrap well and store in the freezer after the first six months (it won't mature and improve once it's in the freezer, so allow it to age first).

Every few weeks, you can unwrap the cake, poke several holes in it with a skewer, and 'feed' it with a little brandy.

Really, making a rich fruit cake is as simple as simple - no more difficult to make the mixture than any regular cake.  However, the preparation of the tin is fiddly and can take a while to get right, so this is what I have focused on for this post - the lining of the tin!

This is the recipe I have used for years.  I can't remember where it came from originally, and I have tweaked it from the original regardless.  It uses a 20cm square tin.

To make the cake, you will need:

• 700g sultanas
• 225g raisins
• 130g currants
• 100g glace cherries (if you don't love the flavour, use less, but it is nice to include some for colour)
• 100g candied peel (or just add another 100g currants if you prefer)
• 1/2 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup slivered almonds (less if you'd prefer)
• 160ml brandy
• 250g butter at room temperature
• 250g brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1 teaspoon grated orange rind
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons marmalade
• 350g plain flour
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• A good pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated if possible)

To prepare your fruit, pick over it carefully, discarding any hard stems, and then cut your sultanas, raisins, glace cherries and dates into smaller pieces, roughly the size of the currants (sultanas in half, raisins in 2-8 pieces depending on size etc).  Use scissors or a sharp knife.

Soak the fruit in the brandy for a day or two, in an airtight container.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy - a few minutes in an electric standing mixer.  Add the lemon and orange rinds, and beat for a little longer.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well in between, then add the vanilla extract and the marmalade, beating in.

Sift the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and spices together, then mix into the butter and egg mixture, alternating with scoops of the soaked fruit.  At this point, you're best to use your clean hands to give it all a thorough mix.

Carefully spread into your prepared cake tin (see below), making sure the mixture is pushed firmly into the corners and all across the bottom.  Press down firmly with your hands, and drop the tin down onto the floor or bench a few times - you want to make sure there are no air bubbles in the mixture.  Use a damp hand to smooth the top down, making a slight dip in the middle (to stop it rising too much).

Bake at 140 degrees Celsius (no fan), on a low shelf in the oven (again, see below) for around 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 hours.  It's really difficult to be precise, because it is such a long time and ovens vary quite a bit.  When cooked, a skewer will come out clean, the top will be dark golden brown, and you can press your finger into the centre of the cake and it should spring back, not leave an indent.

Also - when the cake is not yet cooked, you can put your ear near the surface and hear it 'whispering' to you.  Once it is cooked, it will stop whispering, or be very quiet.  This is something you learn more and more, as you cook it more regularly.

When the cake is cooked, remove from the oven, cut away the high extra paper around the sides, pierce the cake all over with a skewer, and brush 2-3 tablespoons of brandy all over the surface.  Then, right away, wrap the entire cake with a double layer of foil.  This keeps the steam in as the cake cools, keeping it moist  Do not unwrap the cake until it is thoroughly cooled.

When you unwrap the cake, carefully turn it out of the tin, and wrap well for storage.

To serve, I recommend using a serrated knife, and cutting gently, sawing back and forth, to best avoid any crumbling.

Here are my instructions for preparing the cake tin.  In essence, you want to line the sides and bottom with two layers of brown paper, and one layer of baking paper (closest to the cake).  You then want to wrap the outside of the tin with a few layers of brown paper or newspaper, and sit the cake on several layers of paper or carboard.  You also want to sit a layer of baking paper, with a hole, over the top of the tin, to stop it browning too much.  Here you go...

Cut two lengths of brown paper (long enough to wrap the inside of the tin - so, around 80cm for a 20cm square tin).  Make sure that one of the sides is completely straight (e.g. from the edge of the roll) - this side should go down against the bottom of the tin, so it fits evenly.

The strips should be wide enough to extend about 10cm or so above the edge of the tin.  When lining the tin, to help stick the paper against the very edges and into the corners, I suggest greasing the tin with a light film of butter first.

You then need to cut two squares of brown paper, about 2cm wider than the bottom of the tin.  Cut the corners off, so that you can fold the sides of the squares up, leaving no gap between the sides of the tin and the bottom:

Do the same with the sides and bottom with baking paper.  You can grease the strip of baking paper to, to help it stick to the sides and corners.

Fill the tin, making sure there are no air pockets and then smooth the top with a damp hand:

Wrap another few layers of brown paper or newspaper around the outside of the tin, tying it on firmly with string:

Trim the top of the paper, so that it is all even, extending about 10cm or so above the edge of the tin.  On top of this, place a large square of baking paper, with a hole in the middle (about 4cm across in size).  This is to help protect the top of the cake from browning too quickly:

Sit the cake in the oven, on top of several layers of cardboard or brown paper or newspaper.  Put the cake on the bottom or second-bottom shelf of the oven.  I like to sit a shallow tray of hot water in the oven too, to keep the cake moist.  You can see, below, my set-up.  The tray of water is on the bottom left hand side:

When the cake is done, remove and proceed as described in the instructions above.  You can see here that the top of the cake is a little cracked - this is fine and normal, and will close neatly as the cake cools.  At any rate, it is normal to turn the cake over to ice (so that you have a perfectly flat and smooth top) so don't worry at all.

You can see that I've cut the 'excess paper' off the top quickly, so that I can wrap the whole lot in foil after I've brushed it with brandy:

In its foil package, cooling down overnight on the bench:

I won't do my decorating until the week before Christmas - a layer of marzipan and a layer or white fondant icing - so I will post about fondant later.  The decorating really isn't difficult though, just a bit fiddly, and if you'd prefer, you can cover the lot in a messy-on-purpose fluffy layer of royal icing instead, which looks gorgeous too.