Easy Christmas cake recipe.

Summer has passed and the nights are drawing in. Autumn is here and that can only mean one thing, yes – it’s time to make your Christmas cake!

Whether passed on by a parent or created by trial and error, most of us who make our Christmas cakes have a ‘go to’ recipe we like to use.
Every October, my daughter and get ours started using a recipe that is the love child of a Delia Smith and Mary Berry cake and is really straightforward.

Easy Christmas cake recipe – ingredients.

  • 750g soaked dried mixed fruit
  • 225g plain flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 3/4 teaspoon mixed spice
  • 225g dark brown/muscovado sugar
  • 1 tablespoon black treacle
  • 4 eggs – large
  • 225g cubed butter
  • 50g glace cherries – chopped
  • 50g almonds – chopped
  • 50g almonds – flaked
  • zest of an orange and a lemon

Easy Christmas cake recipe cake with holly

Easy Christmas cake recipe – method

  • Preheat your oven to 140º/gas mark 1
  • Line an 8 inch round cake tin with grease proof paper making sure that the paper comes about 4 inches above the tin
  • Sift the flour and spices into a large bowl
  • Add the sugar, butter, eggs, & treacle then beat it all together. A hand mixer will be helpful here!
  • Fold in the rest of the ingredients making sure they’re well mixed in
  • Pour the mix into the prepped tin making sure it’s flat
  • The grease proof paper above the edge of the tin needs folding toward the centre of the tin to create a roof effect with a gap for the hot air to escape
  • Bake for 4 – 4 1/2 hours, use a knife or metal skewer to check it’s cooked throughout. When it comes out clean it’s done
  • Leave to cool for 15 minutes then turn it onto a cooling rack
  • Once the cake is cooled, pierce holes into the cake and brush with rum (or whatever alcohol you’re using). Wrap it in grease proof paper and place in an airtight tin.

Be sure to ‘feed’ your cake with rum once a week until it’s time to decorate.

Easy Christmas cake recipe note

If you can’t source pre-soaked fruit, you can soak it yourself.
Just put the fruit in a large bowl, cover with 100ml of alcohol of your choice and leave for 12 hours.

 

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