So you’ve been lovingly stirring your boozy fruit for the past few weeks and enjoying inhaling the fumes as you do so! Now it’s time to turn that jar of loveliness into this years Christmas Cake. If you missed the Boozy Fruit post you can find it here, get going with it now, even a weeks soaking is going to create some Christmas Magic!

Ingredients:

225g butter, softened
150g soft brown sugar
75g dark brown sugar
2 tbsps treacle
2 tsps mixed cake spice
285g plain flour
5 large eggs, beaten

1 x Boozy Fruit already prepared.

150ml brandy for feeding.

This recipe will make an 8″ round or 7″ square Christmas Cake, if you prefer you can bake two 4″ cakes.

First, the top tips to stop your cake ending in disaster:

• If you haven’t prepared your boozy fruit do it now (and then come back and tell me why you didn’t do it when I posted the recipe – bad Pink Whiskers!)  Soak it for at least a week, more if you can.  Once you’ve soaked it there may still be excess liquid with the fruit, heat the mixture gently in a pan until the majority of the liquid has gone, then continue with the recipe.
• If you’re outside the UK can’t get hold of treacle, molasses is a good substitute.
• Make sure your tin is deep sided, a shallow tin won’t do the trick here!
• Be sure of your oven temperature, a long slow bake is what is called for to stop the cake from drying out too much and baking evenly.
• Position your cake on a shelf about 1/3rd of the way up from the base of the oven.
• When it comes to feeding the baked cake, you can miss this out completely if you would rather, wrap the cake well as described and set aside to mature.  The flavours of the cake still intensifies and the fruit in the cake will soften and be delicious.
• If you would rather you can feed with apple juice or tea for a non-alcoholic cake.
• If you don’t have a tin big enough to store your cake it will be fine wrapped well with baking paper and foil alone. Continue reading →