flour & eggs

My Christmas Cake

Love it or loathe it, Christmas cake is an absolute necessity during the festive period. Whether you eat it or simply use it as a Yuletide adornment, to omit this from your jubilations would be utterly sinful; and I would go right off you were you to do so.

To perfect this recipe I scoured the flavour options, but it was only when I bumped into a giant crate of pomegranates did I consider ‘pomegranate molasses’. And so, I trotted down to my local Turkish supermarket (most Middle Eastern markets will sell this) and bought a bottle of this bitter-sweet syrup. It doesn’t make this cake taste anything near to a pomegranate; it simply adds another element of bitterness and sweetness. That having been said, it is definitely worth the trek to the market. This is not a dark fruit cake as you’d expect a Christmas cake to be; it is a little lighter. Fanny Craddock would have referred to it as a ‘White Christmas Cake’.

ingredients

• 250g dried prunes, pitted and chopped
• 250g black raisins 
• 250g dried apricots, chopped
• 150g glacé cherries, halved
• 250ml Morgan’s Spiced rum
• 50ml cherry liqueur 
• 250g butter, softened 
• 200g light brown muscovado sugar 
• 50g pomegranate molasses 
• 30g black treacle
• 4 eggs, large, free-range and organic
• 250g self raising flour
• 100g ground almonds
• 1tsp bicarb of soda
• 200g chopped walnuts
• zest of 1 orange

You will also need a 24cm springform cake tin. Grease the tin inside and line the base with baking parchment, and also line the inside with baking parchment so that there is an excess of about 2 inches poking out of the top. You must then grease the parchment using a pastry brush and some flavourless oil. 

method

1. Soak the prunes, apricots, cherries and raisins in the alcohols, cover and leave overnight, or at least for 5 hours. 
2. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and treacle to this and mix in. 
4. Add one egg and then 1 quarter of the sifted flour and almonds, mixing well after each addition. Continue this process until all of the flour and eggs are used. Then mix in the bicarb. 
5. Mix the remaining ingredients, including the soaked fruits, into the batter. 
6. Pour into the tin (see above) and bake for about 2 hours, though do check it after one hour as it depends on how hot your oven burns. It will be ready when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean, or when the cake stops ‘hissing’. 

When the cake is completely cooled stab it about 10 times with a long kebab skewer, then wrap in two layers of greaseproof paper, and two layers of kitchen foil and store in an airtight tin. Every week sprinkle 2tbsp brandy over the cake, rewrap, and store in the same way. 

This cake can be kept for about 2 months - some people argue it can be kept for years. Just make sure you wrap it well and the container is extremely air tight. If in a years time it still tastes good, hey you may as well eat it. 

Decorate it in the week leading to Christmas. I will be selecting the traditional marzipan and fondant icing route.