Christmas cake

My lovely lovely Christmas cake. I love you already. Do you think people will mind if I take a slice off you and serve you up slightly wonky on one side? Do you think they'll notice? It's so tempting to try you out, I mean, I wouldn't want to poison anyone... ;-) But I'm a good host, a nice polite host and I can't serve up a half eaten cake. I just can't. So I'm going to have to wait patiently to sample your lovely sherry goodness. Oh yes. You're definitely Not a child-friendly cake. But don't you worry about that, it really doesn't matter, there are no little children to feed. I promise all us adults will be very pleased to taste you :-)

 

 

If you want to go mental like me and start talking to your very own Christmas cake, here's the recipe I followed. It's a mix of several, because I don't like things like candied peel so it's been tweaked to *perfection*. Here it goes:

 

Ingredients:

• 100g blanched almonds roughly chopped
• 250g sultanas
• 200g glace cherries
• 250g chopped dried figs
• 75g dried cranberries
• 250g chopped dried prunes
• 200g chopped dried apricots
• 350g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp almond essence
• zest and juice of an orange and lemon
• 4 tbsp sherry
• 4 large eggs
• 200g brown sugar
• 225g butter at room temperature
• 2 tbsp honey

Method:

• Place all the fruit in a large bowl and add the sherry, zest and juice of the orange and lemon. Cover and let the fruit soak overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 150 degrees  C. Line a 23cm round tin with a double thickness of brown paper and again with baking parchment, both to come up a good 10cm above the rim of the tin.
• Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add the almond extract and honey.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift the dry ingredients together then mix the fruit alternately with the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture. Combine thoroughly.
• Put the cake mix into the prepared tin and bake for 3-3 1/2 hours, until cake tester comes out clean.
• When the cake is cooked, brush with a couple of tablespoons extra of liqueur. Wrap immediately in its tin using double thickness foil. When completely cold, remove cake from tin and rewrap in soil, storing in an airtight tin.

Here's the one I made a couple of years ago. I hope this year's is just as nice.