All Starters Side Main Desserts
Georgia Fink - Executive Assistant

Georgia’s Traditional Christmas Cake

I wanted to start a Christmas tradition and I love Christmas cake (and, to be honeset, cake in general). I found that a lot of shop bought Christmas cakes are made with brandy but I prefer to use Appleton Rum. Now, thanks to my efforts a tradition that dates back to 2013 is in full swing.

Ingredients

600g raisins
200g currants
100g glacé cherries
250g dried apricot, finely chopped
400ml dark rum, plus extra to ‘feed’ the cake (brandy, sherry, Tia Maria, rum all work well)
300g butter, (room temp)
200g dark brown sugar
x4 eggs, at room temperature
x2 golden syrup (treacle works)
300g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground ginger
x1 tsp ground cinnamon
a pinch of ground cloves
150g ground almonds
150g walnuts, chopped
apricot jam
450g marzipan
Royal icing

Method

The night before.

  • Place the dried fruit in a saucepan with the alcohol and bring to a simmer. Pour into a bowl, cool, cover and leave to soften.

 

The following day.

  • Preheat the oven to 150C/gas 2 and line the base and sides of a 23cm round tin or a 20cm square tin with a double layer of greaseproof paper.
  • You’ll need the side lining to be a good 8cm higher than the tin.
  • If you’d like your cake to be particularly moist, blitz half the soaked fruit in a food processor to make a paste, and stir back into the rest of the fruit.
  • In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  • Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
  • Mix in the treacle.
  • Sift the flour and combine with the spices and ground almonds.
  • Mix into the butter mixture, alternating with the soaked fruit.
  • Finally, fold in the walnuts.
  • Spoon the mixture into the lined tin and bake in the oven for about 3 hours.
  • Check after 2½ hours and then every 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
  • As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, brush with a little more booze.
  • Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then remove, placing it directly onto a large sheet of tin foil.
  • Wrap it up twice to retain the heat for as long as possible.
  • After a few hours, remove the foil and wrap the cake up again in a double sheet of greaseproof paper and a double sheet of tin foil, making sure you can access the cake from the top.
  • Store in an airtight container for 2–12 weeks.
  • During this time, feed the cake the alcohol of your choice by gently pouring it over the top and rewrapping.

 

Marzipan and Icing.

  • Follow the instructions on the packet.