Rebecca Woollard started her culinary career as a chalet cook. She is now a food stylist and recipe writer with 10 years of magazine experience.
See more of Rebecca Woollard’s recipes
Rebecca Woollard
Rebecca Woollard started her culinary career as a chalet cook. She is now a food stylist and recipe writer with 10 years of magazine experience.
See more of Rebecca Woollard’s recipes
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Ingredients
300g sultanas
200g currants
150g raisins
zest and juice of 1 orange
zest and juice of 1 lemon
175ml whisky (or rum or brandy, if you prefer), plus extra to feed
100g crystallised ginger pieces, diced
100g stem ginger in syrup, diced, plus 4 tbsp syrup from the jar
1 x 200g tub glace cherries, chopped
100g blanched hazelnuts
250g very soft unsalted butter
250g plain flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground allspice
70g-100g light muscovado sugar (100g if you’re making it to mature and 70g if you’re eating it right away)
100g dark muscovado sugar
4 medium eggs
3 tbsp black treacle
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Step by step
Put the dried fruit, citrus zests and juice in a large bowl, stir, then cover and microwave on high for 2 minutes, stirring halfway through – this is to plump up the fruit. If you don’t have a microwave, put everything in a pan, stirring often over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the whisky, diced gingers, ginger syrup and cherries and mix together. Set aside to soak for a couple of hours, or overnight. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes until golden, then cool, chop roughly and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 140°C, fan 120°C, gas 1. Oil or grease a 20cm diameter, 7cm deep cake tin with a removable base, and line the base and sides with baking paper, making sure it comes at least 3cm above the top of the tin to hold all the cake mix. Cut an extra sheet to cover the top of the cake.
Put the butter, flour, spices, sugars, eggs and treacle in a large mixing bowl with a good pinch of salt and beat together with an electric beater for 2-3 minutes until combined. Add the soaked dried fruit and any remaining liquid, plus the hazelnuts, then mix everything together with a metal spoon. Transfer to the cake tin and level the top. Crumple up the sheet of baking paper, then smooth it out and place loosely over the top of the cake tin (crumpling the paper helps it to mould slightly over the tin and stay in place).
Bake in the middle of the oven for about 4 hours, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out reasonably clean – it might have some fruit on it but shouldn’t have any uncooked mixture.
Leave the cooked cake in the tin for 20 minutes, then turn out upside-down onto a wire rack and remove the baking paper and base of the tin.
Leave to cool completely, then wrap the cake in 2 layers of baking paper, then foil, and keep somewhere cool, dark and dry. Every week or once a month, unwrap the cake and feed it with a few spoonfuls of whisky or rum, with the last feeding about a week before you ice it, so that it isn’t too wet. If you’re making it to serve straight away, it will need a night to firm up before it’s covered with marzipan, and then another night after that before being iced. The cake will also freeze for up to 3 months – wrap in the same way as above, adding a layer of clingfilm over the top. Defrost at room temperature.
Tip
How to make it gluten free Replace plain flour with GF plain flour, adding 1⁄2 tsp xanthan gum. It’ll need more liquid, so add the juice of an extra orange when you make the cake batter.
For a smaller cake ... halve the ingredient quantities and bake in a deep 18cm round cake tin for 2-2 1⁄2 hours.
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Soak all your dried fruits in your spirit of choice – whisky or brandy would be the most traditional options, though other aged spirits like rum also work, and sweeter additions like sherry, Cointreau or amaretto will add their own character.
And you can use other alternatives such as sweet sherry, Grand Marnier or Amaretto. It is possible to use orange juice instead of alcohol to soak the fruits but we would not use it to feed the cake with after baking as fruit juice spoils more easily than alcohol.
How much alcohol do you soak fruit it for Christmas cake? The amount of alcohol you soak fruit in for Christmas cake depends on your personal preference. If you want a strong alcohol flavor, soak the fruit in a cup of brandy or rum. If you prefer a milder flavor, soak the fruit in a cup of orange juice or apple cider.
It's possible to overfeed your cake, which will make it stodgy and wet. Our advice is to feed it once after it's initially baked, then no more than four times during the maturation period. Try a teaspoonful of whichever alcohol you've chosen before you begin feeding your cake to test its strength.
We don't want any excess liquid leaking out of the cake. Feeding a Christmas Cake is simply to keep it from getting too dry and to add lots of flavour. We do this every couple of weeks from the moment we store the cake after baking it until about a week before we're due to decorate it.
Fruitcake aficionados will tell you that the best fruit cakes are matured – or “seasoned” in fruitcake lingo – for at least three months before they are cut. Seasoning not only improves the flavor of the fruitcake, but it makes it easier to slice.
Opinions on the "maturing" of Christmas cakes does vary and is partly an issue of personal taste, but for the rich fruit type of Christmas cakes we would suggest making them up to 3 months ahead of Christmas.
If you followed it exactly and did not add any alcohol in, I would recommend 3-4 weeks max. The cake has a lot of sugar and dried fruit which will help preserve it but it will not last as long as a traditional cake without the alcohol. How do I store a Christmas Cake? Allow to cake to completely cool.
Generally, about 10 to 15 minutes in warm liquid is sufficient. However, if you're using a liquid at room temperature, leave them for at least 30 minutes. You can also refrigerate the bowl if you want to soak the raisins overnight or longer. After soaking, drain the raisins and pat them dry with a paper towel.
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.
First things first: it's important to know that the top of the cake is actually the bottom of the cake, i.e. the bottom that was touching the bottom of the cake pan while it was baking.
This normally happens when the oven is not hot enough or the pastry is not baked for long enough. However, it can also be because too much water was added to the dough.
What should you feed your Christmas cake? Traditionally Christmas cake has a rich, spicy fruity taste, often associated with brandy but whisky, sherry and fortified wine such as Madeira or port can be used.
The middle oven rack is the happy place where air is circulating, the heat sources are evenly distributed, and tops and bottoms aren't in danger of burning or browning too quickly. It's the perfect place for cakes, cookies, and brownies to stay and bake.
Introduction: My name is Barbera Armstrong, I am a lovely, delightful, cooperative, funny, enchanting, vivacious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 45 mins
