Saturday 23 November 2013

Boozy Christmas Cake

You only make Christmas cake once a year so push the boat out and buy best quality ingredients. The taste will be worth the extra expense. 


Boozy Christmas Cake Recipe
250g organic sultanas
250g organic raisins
100g organic unsulphured apricots
100g mixed candied peel (recipe)
4 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons whiskey
2 tablespoons Calvados
Zest and juice of a lemon and orange

Soak all the above dried fruit, juice and zest in the booze and leave loosely covered overnight. Stir it occasionally.

Next day
300g butter
250g muscovado sugar or if using ordinary sugar add a tablespoon of molasses
4 eggs
400g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
half tsp of nutmeg, ground cloves and cinnamon

Cream the butter and sugar together. If using muscovado it can be a bit lumpy so mash with a fork. Add one egg at a time and one tablespoon of sieved flour to prevent curdling.

If you need more flour add a tablespoon at a time. My mixture was quite wet.

Pre-heat oven to 150 deg. If using fan set it to 140 initially and turn down to 120 after an hour.

While oven is heating line tin with butter paper or baking parchment. I had saved loads of butter papers and I also wrapped some around the outside of the tin. My grandmother used to wrap newspaper with string around hers and I always remember the smell of it singeing.

It took just over an hour and a half to bake as I put mine in a fan at 150 deg. It is preferable for it to bake a bit slower so if I was doing it again I would put it in at 140 and turn down after an hour. I was loosely following a Jamie Oliver recipe which said 150.




When cake is completely cold wrap it well in greaseproof and tinfoil and store in a tin. Every week or so drizzle some more whiskey or brandy over it.

I sometimes make a marzipan but more often don't bother as most people just pick it off.

I used a 23cm square cake tin with 7cm depth. Slightly smaller would be better to give a bigger rise.





Finished iced cake
This recipe is the best Christmas cake I have ever made. It was moist, crumbly and so so tasty.

2 comments:

  1. That seems to be a lovely cake. I must try it sometime soon although I have a favourite one I always make. Its not too heavy. I usually add in
    anything I can get my hands on like a bit of crystalised ginger and pineapple, blueberries cranberries, Kay

    ReplyDelete
  2. Absolutely, I use anything I have to hand including dried cranberries and blueberries, dates etc. Even dried fruit mixes sometimes.

    ReplyDelete

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