Traditional Iced Christmas Cake

Every year Christmas comes round and I vow that I will make everything: Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, mince pies (made with homemade mincemeat), stollen, panettone, a gingerbread house, a chocolate Yule log, ......basically EVERYTHING. I predictably never get round to baking all of these wonderful creations, but this year however I did finally make my first Christmas cake. It almost feels like a rite of passage in my culinary adolescence. 

Of course Christmas cake is one of those things that you make in advance, and super prepared people who plan their Christmas in the heat of the summer make it months ahead and it matures (and you 'feed' it regularly, as if it were a living breathing creature with alcohol, in this case 10 year old whisky). 

I was not that organised being a full time student, and when not studying....working. And when not obligated to either, I am sleeping (more like hibernating). And so friends, my Christmas cake this year was a very hurried affair, made three days before Christmas day and fed twice a day with extra whisky to compensate for the lack of maturation. 

I am glad in some ways that I didn't have time to make everything else that I had planned to, as I do feel at Christmas there is far too much dried fruit and mixed peel. I like both of these in small quantities, but after a while everything starts to taste the same if you know what I mean. Variation is important at Christmas I think. 

Anyway, this is a deliciously moist cake packed with juicy dried cherries, sultanas, raisins and figs, that have been soaked in, you guessed it, whisky. It's absolutely gorgeous, with lovely gingery spicy back notes. This is covered in a thin layer of marzipan and fondant icing. I personally think that fruit cake has to have marzipan, but of course you can leave this out if you don't like it. 

Traditional Iced Christmas Cake

Recipe from Felicity Cloake 

Ingredients: 
250g/8oz currants
250g/8oz sultanas
100g/4oz dried figs, roughly chopped
100g/4oz glace cherries, cut in half
100g mixed peel 
125ml/4 flu oz whisky, plus extra to feed
125g/5oz butter, softened 
125g/5oz dark brown muscovado sugar
4 eggs, beaten
130g/5oz plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
50g/2oz whole almonds
Grated zest of a lemon
50g/2oz ground almonds
25g/1oz crystallized ginger, chopped

To ice:
1 tbsp apricot preserve, heated gently in a saucepan and cooled
250g natural marzipan (or you can use the golden marzipan if you want a contrasting colour)
250g fondant icing  
Decorations (sugar snowflakes, edible glitter, ribbons etc)

1. Put the dried fruit and peel in a bowl along with whisky, stir to combine, cover and leave to soak overnight. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.

2. Preheat the oven to 140C. Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy and add the eggs very gradually, beating thoroughly after each addition to prevent curdling. 

3. Mix together the sifted flour, baking powder, mixed spice, ground almonds and a pinch of salt and then fold this into the butter and egg mixture. Add the soaked fruits, and any remaining whisky, the lemon zest, chopped almonds and ginger 

4. Tip the mixture into your prepared tin and smooth the surface, scooping out a small hollow in the center to prevent a doming effect. Put the cake in the oven for an hour, then cover with foil and bake for another 30-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Check every ten minutes until it's cooked. 

5. Leave to cool in the tin then poke a few more holes almost all the way through the cake and brush them with more whisky. Wrap well in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight tin or layer of foil and continue to feed your fruit cake with about a tbsp or so of whisky every so often (I did it twice a day because I was in a rush, but every week should be enough if you are doing it a month or so in advance. 

6. Brush the cake liberally with apricot preserve, making sure to brush the sides too. To ice the finished cake, roll out your marzipan on a work surface lightly dusted with icing sugar, roll out to about 40cm wide, so that it is considerably bigger than the cake and you can easily trim off the edges. Transfer this carefully over your cake, smoothing down with your hands and ensuring close contact with the cake, pressing down any air bubbles. 

7. Repeat this process with the fondant icing, smoothing down again and trimming off the edges with a small knife. To finish decorate your cake however you wish. I simply pressed small sugar snowflakes on top (sadly didn't have any edible glue) and popped a bit of holly at the top. If your edges are a bit rough a ribbon round the edge would be the perfect cover up! 

Absolutely delicious! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!