Christmas Cake 2013

So this is only a slight improvement on last year's series of posts. There's more rum in the fruit soak, more spice and for the sake of clarity this year the cake making is being condensed into one post for the sake off ease &  of print-ability.

I really love this cake, it was born out of necessity ( I have a nut & dairy allergy) but with a lot of experimentation I settled on a good dense, sweet and spicy cake that smells heavenly without being too filling or dry. Dry fruit cake is the pits. It's great iced or plain. Alas the alcohol content is very high so it is not suitable for every one. However an alcohol free version can be easily made a few days before Christmas- just soak the fruit in cold black tea or fruit juice (orange or cranberry juice would be lovely. )

Christmas cake can seem super daunting, baking something so far in advance spoilage can be a worry but that's the important role the alcahol plays preserving the cake and allowing the flavours to deepen and develop.

What you'll need:

• 200g glacé cherries, chopped (I like French style best, if dayglo red and green are you're thing I won't judge you too much)
• 200g candied peel (often referred to as mixed peel) 
• 1kg sultans, raisins or currants (a mix or just the fruit you like best, i usually just use raisins because I like them best and we tend to have them in the pantry anyway.)
• 1 litre bottle of dark rum (this will serve you from start to finish and leave you some to spare, supermarket own brand is fine)
• 30ml/1 table spoon of vanilla extract (never essence if you can help it)
• 250g very dark brown sugar
• 250g butter (I use a dairy free margarine, as long as its okay for baking it'll work in the cake)
• 6 medium eggs
• 400g plain flour
• 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 100g ground rice or ground almonds
• 1 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 3 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons of mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon of ginger 

Christmas Cake!

So yesterday was the big day! I had class in the morning and cake home and spent the afternoon baking. The cake does take a wee while to do from start to finish so set the best part of the day aside for it, but don't worry a good chunk of it is spent waiting for the cake to bake so I recommend getting a few Christmas films in to get you in the mood. Edit. This is a process of two days, the day before cake day you want to soak the fruit, here's the post on it.

So, Lets get started! First off the ingredients and supplies list:


200g of glacé cherries

200g of candied peel (some times referred to as mixed peel)

1kg of currants and sultans mixed

(if peel and cherries are not your thing just sub with more dried fruit)

175ml of dark rum (just buy a bottle of the super market own brand, as we'll need more to feed the cake weekly)

25ml of vanilla extract or essence

250g v. dark brown sugar

250g butter (I actually use a butter substitute)

6 medium eggs

400g plain flour (all purpose)

1/4 of a teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

100g ground rice or ground almonds.

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of mixed spice (pumpkin pie spice)

A large (23cm or so) spring form pan (or two if you prefer a shorter cake)

A roll of grease proof baking paper

Some kitchen string

A flat baking tray that's wider than the cake tin

A large bowl to soak the fruit and mix the cake in.

A pastry brush

A kebab skewer

A wooden spoon

A large cake tin or cling film (this will make more sense at the end of this post. i promise.)

And an oven obviously and a cooling rack is also handy!

Its best to prepare the tin first, so grab your self your spring-form pan, the string, the tray and the baking paper and a pair of scissors. You'll need a good amount of space to so this. You need to basically put your cake in a jacket. Trace the base of the tin, cut out with about an inch extra all around. Snip into this extra inch at intervals of about half an inch all round. Pop the circular piece of paper into the completed cake pan.

Next measure the circumference of the pan and cut a sheet of baking paper to this length and then fold it in half length wise, now this is the trickiest bit of what you have to do we want to slip the paper over the sides of the tin, like a brown crinkly hard to wrangle jacket. I use a shorter piece of paper to stabilise the whole job.

It should end up looking something like this:

The paper acts as insulation and adds stability. The cookie sheet and the baking paper on it act as insulation against the base of the cake burning.
Don't worry too much about the fiddlyness, the paper needs greasing with butter or oil so folds and kinks get worked out easily. Just use a pastry brush or a scrap of scrunched up baking paper to aid with the greasing.

Check the shelves in the oven, you'll probably have to move their position to fit the tin in it's jacket.

Now, go and turn the oven on, medium heat.


The actual process of making the cake is a very simple one, sift the dry ingredients together and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar, slowly add the eggs in till well combined. Add the dry ingredients in a little at a time, will well combined. Slowly fold in the fruit with a big spoon, don't agitate it too much to keep the fruit whole.

Spoon into the cake tin, level mix off gently with your spoon.

Pop it in the oven. It should take about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to bake. One a skewer comes out clean and it's a nice golden colour its ready to come out!

Let it cool slightly before attempting to take the tin apart and the paper off.

Once its cool, prick all over with a clean skewer, brush all over with a little rum. Wrap it in baking paper and pop into an air tight container. (If you don't have a tub large enough just wrap in baking paper and enough cling film to make the package air tight.) Store in a cool dark place. Take it out once a week and brush over with rum!

Pat yourself on the back, you've made a Christmas cake!

I'll cover decorating it much closer to the time. If any of that didn't make any sense feel free to drop me an email or a comment and I'll try and help!

Minnie xoxo

P.S. sorry for all the instagram pictures but I'm afraid I can't find my camera cable :(

Fruit!

So do you all remember this post about Christmas cake?

Well, brace yourselves, there are 90 days till christmas. Yeah you read that right. 90 days. So its time to get this cake rolling and out of the way!

First things first, we need to prepare and soak the fruit at least a day in advance. We really want the fruit to soak up the alcohol to help the cake keep well for the next 90 days or so. So for this we need:

200g of glacé cherries (I used French style because they are cheaper here and I prefer the way they taste)

200g of candied peel (some times referred to as mixed peel)

1kg of currants and sultans mixed

(if peel and cherries are not your thing just sub with more dried fruit)

175ml of dark rum

25ml of vanilla extract or essence

So messy job first. Take your cherries and snip them in half. Its a messy sticky job but it serves two purposes, the cherries go further and you can be quite sure that there are no stones that have been missed during processing left in the fruit.

I just snip them right into a large mixing bowl before adding the dried fruit and peel. Give it a wee mix then add the rum and vanilla. Mix again, cover the bowl with cling film and pop in the fridge over night.

It doesn't look like much, but believe me it smells amazing.

And don't worry if this is all too early for you , I'll be posting the recipe as a whole too!

Take care, Minnie xoxo

Christmas cake!

So in the spirit of poverty, and giving people some time to find out what kind of cake every one likes I am going to post the ingredients and supplies list today. (Don't worry this will all be posted together at the recipe stage again.)

You probably have at least some of the things you need in the pantry. Don't worry, if you have to purchase some of the more expensive items, they are all staples in standard holiday baking, so any left overs can be used later in the year quite easily. We aren't going to be working with anything horribly complicated or unusual.

So, ingredients wise you will need

200g of glacé cherries (French style are best but to be honest it won't make much difference in this cake)

200g of candied peel (some times referred to as mixed peel)

1kg of currants and sultans mixed

(if peel and cherries are not your thing just sub with more dried fruit)

175ml of dark rum (just buy a bottle of the super market own brand, as we'll need more to feed the cake weekly)

25ml of vanilla extract or essence (NOT flavour. Flavour isn't real vanilla and lets just not go into what it is)

250g v. dark brown sugar

250g butter (I actually use a butter substitute as I've got a dairy allergy)

6 medium eggs

400g plain flour (all purpose)

1/4 of a teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

100g ground rice or ground almonds.

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of mixed spice (pumpkin pie spice)

See! Nothing scary there at all!

So any special hardware?

A large (23cm or so) Spring form pans (or two if you prefer a shorter cake)

A roll of grease proof baking paper

Some kitchen string

A flat baking tray that's wider than the cake tin

A large bowl to soak the fruit and mix the cake in.

A pastry brush

A kebab skewer

A wooden spoon

So far so good? Any questions yet?

Now given that my recipe is the way I like my christmas cake, so I'm going to link to the classic christmas cake.

Delia smith's christmas cake is a really traditional cake, it's smaller than mine and made with brandy, treacle and chopped almonds. Still quite simple.

But a quick search will bring up any number of versions of the classic! Not all are made as far in advance, this is because my cake is quite a dry cake and the rum keeps the cake and adds much needed moisture.

We won't be starting for a few weeks yet so we've all got plenty of time to buy the ingredients and supplies with out breaking the bank. So don't feel panicked into buying everything at once!

I hope that wasn't too over whelming minnie xoxo

The Christmas count down begins.

"Ha! That's ages away you crazy lady!" I hear you scoff but it's less than 18 weeks till Christmas! 18 weeks people! 122 days. Yikes. I love Christmas, and we're usually quite ahead by now, but I'll be honest this year I'm not even ready for Bloke's birthday next month much less Christmas. The move, the wedding planning, my depression, uni. Everything has been so intense this year. So its time to take a massive step back. Do an august spring clean and hunt out the christmas cake recipe. Which brings me to my point, who's up for a Christmas cake along? Anyone? we'll bake it in september feed it over the months and decorate in December. And I'll post an alcohol free version in December too. I strongly encourage recipe swapping and any questions with regards to technique I will answer as best I can, with videos even! Most importantly a good, tasty christmas cake does not have to be expensive (really!) or full of weird green glacé cherries unless you like that sort of thing, you weidos. And if you don't like fruit cake don't worry, there will be plenty going on as we get a bit closer to the festive season! Now I'm off to have a cup of tea while I try to pretend like I'm not the crasy person who just brought up Christmas/Yule cake in August... Take care, Minnie x

The Cake Bandit.

Whenever I'm homesick for feeling listless I bake, this process usually involves something sweet from my childhood or scones. If its scones they're all we'll eat for about two days and then we're back to lovely things like vegetables and other non scone items. We emerge from a crab haze no worse the wear for it.

But if I'm in a sweet making mood then the Cake Bandit comes out to play, otherwise we wouldn't actually be able to, you know, fit through the door to leave the house. So after we've had our fill with a cuppa, the offending sweets get wrapped up and deposited in the arms of friends and workmates. I am the cake bandit.

Today I donned the cake bandit cape. I made Millionaire's Shortbread, which to the rest of the world is Caramel slice. It takes me back to primary school, the dinner ladies used to offer it as a pudding option.

It take a bit of time, so pick a day when you've got time to float about and procrastinate, or cheat. More on the cheating later. The Recipe consists of three parts, the chocolate top, the dulce de leche middle and the shortbread base.And its all easier than you think.

Millionaire's Shortbread


300g chocolate (or if you're afraid of tempering chocolate, a bar of cake topping does fairly well)
50g caster sugar
100g plain flour
100g ground rice (but 200g of flour will still result in a perfectly serviceable short bread if you've no ground rice)
100g butter and a little extra
A pinch of salt
A dust of cocoa powder
A small (379g) can of condensed milk

Peirce the lid of the condensed milk, put the tin in a pot or slow cooker, fill with hot water till it reaches 3/4 of the way up the can and leave to simmer for three hours or so.

Dump the flour, rice flour, salt and flour into a bowl, cut or rub in the butter. press the mix into a lined tray with your hands or the side of a glass to get a nice and even surface, jab a few times with a fork then pop into a medium hot oven till it just takes on a golden suggestion of colour at the edges. Set aside to cool. Given that the dulche de leche takes forever to cook, this shouldn't be an issue.

Once the condensed milk has reached its lovely golden toffee colour (it bubbles through the hole in the can, if you didn't make a hole then the can would explode) its time to spread that lovely stuff all over the short bread, this doesn't need to be neat or pretty. Melt the chocolate with a tiny teeny amount of butter in a bain marie or in the microwave in 15 second bursts. Pour over the lot, sprinkle with cocoa powder before the chocolate sets and pop it gently into the fridge.

If you don't have time to sit about and wait for the condensed milk to do its thing you can pop it in a pan with some butter, a little brown sugar and a pinch of salt and simmer the mix gently till it thickens. This will give a more complete flavour but its a tricky one to gauge, if you boil it you'll end up with a talky sugar crumble. Which is nice, but not what we're looking for here.

Look at all that squidgy goodness. MMMMmm. Squidgy.