In a festive series from our Lois Daish archive, we start with a cake with unusual proportions of fruit.
A Christmas cake, photo Chris Skelton/HoS
At last I’ve found a Christmas cake recipe which I’ll be happy to make for years to come. A traditional English style recipe, it has unusual proportions of dried fruit, with four kinds of dried grape – seedless raisins, seeded sticky raisins, sultanas and currants – making up most of the mix. There are reduced quantities of peel, cherries and almonds than in most recipes, but sharpness of flavour is provided by grated fresh orange and lemon zest, marmalade and brandy. I cut the cake the day after it was baked. It cut cleanly and had a rich well-balanced flavour, which after a few weeks ageing will mellow and soften.
This recipe comes from an unlikely source. Diana Kennedy is well know for her books about Mexican food. however, she hasn’t forgotten her English childhood and has several recipes for traditional English dishes in a personal collection called Nothing Fancy – recipes and recollections of soul-satisfying food (Doubleday, New York, 1984).
This recipe makes one medium-sized 20cm square cake. Allow more time for baking if you use a round tin of similar diameter, as this will produce a deeper cake. Next time I make this recipe I’ll probably double it and bake in a large deep square tin.
EXCELLENT CHRISTMAS CAKE
- 200g seedless raisins
- 200g seeded sticky raisins
- 200g sultanas
- 200g currants
- 75g glace cherries
- 50g candied peel
- 50g blanched almonds
- 50g marmalade
- 1/4 cup brandy
- 200g butter
- 200g soft brown sugar
- 1 tbsp treacle
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 250g flour
- pinch each of ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and mace
- 2 tsp finely grated orange zest
- 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
First prepare the fruit. Pick through the various raisins to find any stray stalks. Roughly chop the seeded raisins. Finely chop the cherries and peel, and sliver the almonds. Put all the fruit and nuts in a bowl with the marmalade and brandy. Mix thoroughly together. this can be done a day ahead if you wish. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until soft and light, then beat in the treacle. Beat in the eggs once at a time, then the vanilla. If the mixture starts to curdle add a tablespoon of the flour. Sift the flour with the spices and beat lightly into the creamed mixture. Beat in the orange and lemon zests. Mix in the fruit. Line a deep 20 cm square cake time with greaseproof paper. Pile the mixture into the tin, smoothing the top evenly. Bake at 160ºC for 11/2 hours. Reduce the heat to 150ºC and bake for another 30 to 60 minutes until the cake is firm right to the middle and a metal skewer comes out clean. Turn off the oven, open the door and leave the cake in the oven for another 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely before turning out. Wrap in a brandy-soaked cloth, if you wish, and store in an airtight tin or plastic bag. This cake is fine to cut and eat the next day, but will mature in flavour if kept for three weeks before cutting. It will keep for a year if dabbed with brandy from time to time and kept in a cool place.
This recipe first appeared in the Listener on November 25 1991.