Deluxe Fruit Cake
A perfect brandy soaked Christmas cake. Instructions for non-alcoholic version is included in the recipe.
Leave about 2- 4 weeks for maturing (or more). Cake can be kept for about a year at room temperature or longer if frozen.
This cake can be covered with marzipan (use apricot jam as the glue) and then covered with fondant or decorate with fruit and nuts for an un-iced version.
Deluxe Christmas Cake
Perfect dark and boozy fruit cake
Ingredients
- 250 g cake mix
- 200 g currants
- 50 g prunes pitted and coarsely chopped
- 250 g dates coarsely chopped
- 250 g glace cherries
- 100 g mixed peel
- 100 g glace ginger
- 200 g nuts I use pecan but any will do – roughly chopped
- Zest and juice of one lemon
- Zest and juice of one orange
- 80 g chunky marmalade I sometimes use apricot jam here
- 100 g treacle sugar
- 125 g butter
- 200 ml water
- 3 eggs
- 50 ml espresso or 15ml instant coffee dissolved in a little water
- 250 g cake flour sifted
- 15 ml cocoa powder
- 5 ml baking powder
- Brandy for soaking
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease and line a 23cm baking tin, make sure that your lining comes up the sides about 5cm above the top of the tin.
- In a big pot mix all the dried fruit, cherries, mixed peel, ginger and nuts. Add the zest and juice of the orange and lemon, marmalade, butter, sugar and water.
- Bring to the boil and give it a good stir to mix everything. Then let it simmer for 5 minutes.
- Leave it to cool, you should be able to hold the pot in your hands comfortably (or leave it overnight and finish off the following day). Once the mixture has cooled add the eggs and espresso and mix well. Sift the dry ingredients in and mix well again.
- Spoon the mixture into your tin and bake for about 2 hours. The cake should feel firm to the touch and a skewer should come out clean. If the cake I getting a bit dark on the top and not cooked through yet, cover the top with foil and turn down the heat slightly.
- When you take it out of the oven splash a good amount of brandy over the top while it is still hot. That should soak in quite quickly, after that you can remove it from the tin. You can eat the cake as is then, but it is definitely better if you keep topping up the brandy over the next few weeks.
- Wrap the cake in foil and plastic wrap and once a week 'water' it with another healthy splash of brandy (as much as it can soak up at a time), each time turning it over to get even distribution. After a couple of weeks you will see that it has become quite moist and can’t really absorb any more brandy. I usually know when it is done because it kind of puts out a dark sticky syrup at the bottom.
Notes
For a non-alcoholic version soak with apricot juice, however this does not preserve the cake so that eat within a couple of weeks. Happy cooking!