Christmas Cake!
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One of the most iconic bakes that exists, the christmas cake… homemade and scrumptious filled with fruit, and soaked in brandy!
Christmas baking
So lets the honest now, I’m mentioning Christmas in… September. I know, it’s extremely overkill, but once you realise this is about a Christmas Cake hopefully you will understand why!
Christmas baking is one of my favourite things to do as I adore the theming of Christmas, but this recipe is something that has been waiting for years and years, as I just don’t really like Christmas cake… yup.
So, I know that’s not the best thing to start with on a recipe post, but genuinely? I’m not the biggest fan. However, my family adore Christmas cake and they have no tested and tasted SO MANY CAKES so I could post this recipe.
Christmas pudding
I have a cheats Christmas pudding in my second book, as typically with bakes like this you need to take your time. They are recipes that develop over the time because of the alcohol that you put into the bake.
However, for the cheats Christmas pudding I thought about the people who, like me, often forget to create a bake like these within the time frame. This Christmas cake recipe however?! Oh that’s the opposite. I am bang on the correct time for this beauty.
If you don’t like Christmas cake or Christmas pudding though, and you want an amazing showstopper, you can try my other bakes such as my Rocky Road Christmas Pudding – this is my go to.
Christmas Cake
Christmas cake? Yes, Christmas cake. There’s a lot of opinions on when is best to make it, so its entirely up to you. Yes, it will work if you make it slightly later on in the year, but it’s best to crack on as soon as possible.
I’ve always been told whether its from the notes in my Granny’s baking bible, or just by word of mouth, that 12 weeks before Christmas is the best time to create a Christmas cake. And guess what, it’s 12 weeks now.
You can do it 10 weeks before, 8 weeks, 6 weeks etc… just the nearer to Christmas you make it, the less feeding time you have. You can store and wrap the Christmas cake really well after feeding in parchment paper and tin foil, in a metal cake tin (plastic tubs may make them sweat).
The fruit
When it comes to the fruit of the Christmas cake, you can cater it more to what you prefer, but I used a broader amount as that’s what works best for my trusty taste testers, as it gives more flavour and textures. I use a combination of raisins, sultanas, currants, dried cranberries, glaze cherries, and mixed peel. The total weight is about 1075g worth of fruits, which is a lot – but you need a lot for a decent Christmas cake!
If you don’t have slightly the correct amount of something, you can use other fruits as well. You can also buy ready mixed dried fruit for fruit cakes so if you don’t want to buy a lot of separate packets, then that is totally fine. If you buy a bag of pre-soaked fruit, you can just add that into the mixture and skip steps 1-4 of the method. Instead, melt the butter and add the sugar, treacle, lemon zest and juice to a bowl and mix. Then, add in the pre-soaked fruit and stir in and continue with the rest of the recipe.
The other ingredients
When it comes to the rest of the ingredients, it does sound like quite a bit. I like to add the zest and juice of lemon for a zingy flavour, as well as flavours such as mixed spice, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon. I also add a bit of vanilla. These flavours are optional and adaptable.
The butter is important, but I melt it into the fruity mixture so that it melts down well. The sugar is light brown soft sugar, and I use some black treacle (you can use golden syrup). The flour is standard, and some ground almonds. You can use the self raising flour method like I often do, or you can use plain flour + 1tsp baking powder.
If you don’t want to use nuts, you can replace the ground almonds with more flour (match the weight of the almonds). Also, mix through the eggs… I use 5 medium, but four large eggs will also work super well.
The alcohol
The big part of the Christmas cake… the alcohol you use. You can vary this to again your preference but it’s often a reasonably strong spirit alcohol that you need and want to use. I went for brandy in this recipe.
You can use whiskey, rum, brandy, amaretto etc but you can honestly just pick your favourite, the cheapest, the nicest, etc… it’s entirely up to you. You mix the alcohol into the fruit at the start of making the Christmas cake, and then you use it to feed the cake until you eat it.
If you want an alcohol free cake, I tend to use tea to soak the fruit (but a lot of people use apple juice instead.). Brew the tea to the same quantity and soak the fruit in the same way.
Timings
So for me, the peak time to create a cake like this is 12 weeks before you want it. It takes a fair few hours to make on the first day, because the bake time is so long, but after that it’s not that bad at all.
I would say it takes about half an hour to make the mixture, and then its about 2 hours to bake the cake. It takes a few hours to cool down properly, and then you need to wrap the cake well.
I like to feed my cake with a few tablespoons of brandy every two weeks up until Christmas. If you want to decorate your Christmas cake, you do not want to feed it just before as it will make it wet and sticky so slightly annoying.
If you make your cake nearer to Christmas, that is totally okay. You really don’t need to make it 12 weeks before, so don’t stress if you can’t make it this week.
Christmas Cake!
Ingredients
- 200 g raisins
- 200 g sultanas
- 200 g currants
- 200 g dried cranberries
- 200 g glace cherries
- 75 g mixed peel
- zest of 2 lemons
- juice of 2 lemons
- 175 ml alcohol (I used brandy) (* see notes)
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 200 g light brown soft sugar
- 50 g treacle
- 200 g self raising flour (* see notes)
- 100 g ground almonds (* see notes)
- 2 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 5 medium eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Add the raisins, sultanas, currants, dried cranberries, glacé cherries, mixed peel, lemon zest, lemon juice, brandy, butter, light brown sugar and treacle to a large bowl
- Mix these together, and then heat in the microwave for 5 minutes on high, letting the butter melt, and stir together well.
- Alternatively, add all of the ingredients to a large pan, bring to the boil, and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Leave the mixture to cool for 30 minutes. During this time, preheat the oven to 150ºc/130ºc fan
- Once cooled, add the self raising flour, ground almonds, mixed spice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs and vanilla to the bowl and mix until combined
- Pour into a deep 8" cake tin that is lined on the based and sides well. You don't want any tin showing as it may get stuck
- Pour the mixture into the lined tin, and bake for 2 hours. Keep an eye on it towards the end, if its browning too much, cover lightly with foil
- Once baked, remove from the oven and prick with a fork. Spoon over 2-3 more brandy and cool completely.
- Once cooled, wrap in clean baking parchment, and foil, and store for 2 weeks and feed with 2-3 more tbsps of brandy. Repeat every two weeks until Christmas.
Notes
- I make my Christmas cake 12 weeks before Christmas, but it can be done nearer to the time or even earlier
- I feed my cake every 2 weeks
- You can freeze the cake, wrapped in baking parchment and then tin foil, for 3+ months
- I use brandy, but you can use any rich spirit (read the blog post) or you can substitute for tea/apple juice for alcohol free
- Try to store the cake wrapped well in baking parchment and then foil, in a cake tin. Sealed tubs can make it sweat.
- You can sub the self raising flour for plain flour + 1 tsp of baking powder
- The ground almonds can be replaced with more flour, but this will change the texture
ENJOY!
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J x
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Hi Jane
If I have 800g of brandy soaked fruits, do I need to amend the recipe at all?
I tried it and it turned out okay. I got the bag of fruit from Aldi. Jane’s recipe has about 1000g fruit. The bag has 800g and the cake looked like the one jane made.
I forgot to add the vanilla extract!
Will the cakes still taste nice?
Hi can I make this gluten free and use stevia instead of sugar please?
I’m going to try this an deep square tin would it be ok thanks
Hi Jane, made this Christmas cake and it’s definitely going to be my go to recipe – question for you- could I use this recipe to make a simnel cake ?
Fantastic Christmas fruit cake. Will definitely make this again for Easter and every Christmas!!!
I have made many of Jane’s cakes and they never disappoint. Always have compliments when I make the cakes!!
I needed to make a 10 inch and 4inch deep cake. I used this recipe and doubled the mixture. I filled the tin 2 thirds full but it only measures 3inches deep.
Should I of filled the tin to the top? I just didn’t want to risk it overflowing as it rose. Its for the bottom tier of a wedding cake x
This is best Christmas cake I have ever made, absolutely delicious!
Hi Jane
I made your Christmas cake for gifts & everyone said how delicious it was thankyou very much for sharing your recipe! I am now baking a couple more I soaked my fruit in brandy do I discard the brandy after soaking the fruit or just add the other ingredients please.
I’ve made this cake today and baked at 130 fan but I’ve baked it for almost 3.5 hours and it’s still not baked through. Not sure why? I followed all instructions and this has never happened before when making a Christmas cake.
It may be that the cake is baked but because of the level of alcohol and fruit it doesn’t seem it. Fruit cake can vary slightly in baking times but not that much if everything was measured correctly and in the correct size tin x
Hi Anita. Did it taste ok? My cake has also taken that length of time to cook (the scewer kept coming up super wet every time I checked) and I’m hoping it won’t taste over cooked/dry come Christmas! Thanks
I thought I could put the fruit in a bowl in the microwave, but the amount of fruit is huge and I don’t have a bowl big enough. I ended up using a huge soup pan and boiled the fruit for 10 minutes, on the hob. I did leave it for 30 minutes to cool , but I really think the mixture was far too hot still, that it scrambled the eggs a little bit- it’s something I did wonder about, as the fruit mix is so hot. I looked at the fruit and thought- “that is not going to fit in my deep 8 inch cake tin”! So I cautiously took my 9 inch pan out of the cupboard! IT WORKED! My cake is now cooling! So: in a 9 inch pan, my cake took 1 hour and 20 minutes- fan oven 130C. It darkened slightly round the edge, so I will cover it next time.
I used a 7inch cake tin as that’s all I had. It fit (kinda) and made a lovely fat cake
As always Jane’s recipes never fail.
Had minor panic when couldn’t find my 8″ deep cake tin. So, with some quick maths, this recipe nicely makes x3 6″ cakes in regular depth tins, just factor in slight reduction in cooking time. As always thank you Jane for a new recipe!
Hi Abbie..
Would you mind sharing the breakdown for 3 x 6 inch cakes please. And your cooking time. Thank you x
Help!! I forgot to add vanilla extract 🙄 its in oven now, can I do something once baked?
I’m wanting to use this to make a christmas cake for a family friend and it to be the traditional christmas pudding shape so it’ll be baked in a fluted ring tin (7.5″ deep and 9.5″ across). I’m just wondering how much different the baking time would be and if i would need to increase the amount of batter? Also would it go bad faster due to the hole in the center? I’m new to baking so i don’t understand how a lot of it works. Thank you!
Hi abbie ive been asked to make a 6inch cake how long roughly did you cook yours for and also how far up the pan did you fill it. Im a hobby baker 😁
Hi I’m wondering if I could split the ingredients between two 2lb loaf tins x
Good morning,
I don’t want to use alcohol in my
recipe. Would it be possible to explain what
method I would use with the tea instead please?
Do I need to soak the fruit beforehand & do I feed the cake with tea instead of the alcohol?
Thank you
Would there be enough mixture to divide into 2 x 6” tins? If so what would the timings be? Thank you- Great sounding recipe. 🎄
Did this work Samantha? How long did you end up baking for? Xx
Can you use the soft spread instead of block butter if it’s to be melted ? Thank you for your reply….
When you feed the cake do you feed each side or just the top? Past cakes I have rotated the cake each feed
Just the top as long as it’s pour as evenly as you can!
Use a toothpick to make a few holes just in the top and brush on your booze it will soak into the cake better
Thanks for this recipe! Could this be split in to to 6″ cakes instead? How would I adjust the cooking time please?