Easy Christmas Cake

Keep fuss to a minimum and still deliver on flavour with this easy Christmas Cake recipe. In our household, baking the boozy cake kick-starts the festive season.

Many years ago, I would spend hours trawling through recipes and baked increasingly complicated cakes which contained dozens of ingredients. No longer, I would much rather use the time elsewhere and this recipe easily holds its own.

You can use any assortment of dried fruit that you like, I like golden sultanas, raisins and cranberries. The alcohol element can be swapped for the more traditional brandy if you prefer. I use a round 8” tin as I find round cakes easier to decorate.

To decorate, use your imagination, this is the fun bit. You could top the cake with glace fruits or nuts and glaze it, or go for the traditional marzipan and royal icing combo. I use shop bought ready to roll icing and then stamp out some snowflakes with a biscuit cutter. I’m not the neatest cake decorator, so I use a pizza wheel to trim off the excess icing and secure a pretty ribbon around the sides to hide any mistakes.

Prep time: 20 minutes                Cook time: 3 hours+

Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 300g plain flour
  • 250g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
  • 250g soft light brown sugar
  • 1 ½ tbsp ground mixed spice
  • 410g jar mincemeat (any brand)
  • 300g mixed dried fruit
  • 200g mixed peel
  • 200g glace cherries, halved
  • 60ml black raspberry liquor

You will need: a 8” round tin & grease proof paper

 

Method:

Preheat oven to 140°C.

Grease and line the cake tin.

Add black raspberry liquor to the dried fruit and leave to one side.

Beat butter and sugar together until pale.

Add eggs one at a time, beating them in before adding more.

Add all the other ingredients and mix together well.

Pop the mix into the cake tin and bake for at least 3 hours. It may take longer so test it by poking a skewer into the middle of the cake. If it comes out dry the cake is baked.

Cool the cake in the tin.

When completely cooled, remove cake from the tin but leave it in the paper, roll the whole thing in foil and store in the cupboard until required. I make this 4-8 weeks in advance.

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