So Christmas is coming up.. in 3 months. But that’s close enough to start the Festive activities! We love Christmas and everything about it and we are extremely excited for all the fun we are going to have baking (and drinking). So even though we aren’t yet sitting in front the fire drinking mulled wine, it’s time to start the Christmas Cake!

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It’s best to start your Christmas Cake up to 3 months in advance because after its baked you need to keep feeding the cake with all the brandy, allowing it to mature and build a really lovely flavour. As long as you keep the cake wrapped in greaseproof paper, foil & stored in an airtight container it’ll keep just fine.

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Don’t forget that before you plan on baking, you need to soak the fruit in a few tablespoons of brandy over night, this will make the fruit all plump and moist.

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Classic Christmas Cake
Recipe for 20cm cake
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Cook Time
4 hr 15 min
Cook Time
4 hr 15 min
Ingredients
  1. 275g currants
  2. 175g sultanas
  3. 175g raisins
  4. 100g glace cherries, rinsed & quartered
  5. 100g dried apricots, chopped
  6. 50g candied peel, chopped
  7. 5 tbsp brandy
  8. 225g plain flour
  9. pinch grated nutmeg
  10. 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  11. 225g butter, softened
  12. 225g dark muscovado sugar
  13. 4 eggs
  14. 1 tbsp black treacle
  15. rind of 1 lemon
  16. rind of 1 orange
  17. brandy for feeding
Instructions
  1. Combine the dried fruit and candied peel in a bowl with the brandy and stir in to mix well. Cover and leave overnight to soak.
  2. Beat together the remaining ingredients (not the feeding brandy). Stir in the soaked fruit.
  3. Grease and line a 20cm round, deep tin, pour in the cake batter and cover with a disk of baking paper to prevent the top from burning.
  4. Bake in a preheated oven (140C fan) for 4-4.5 hours until a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the tin with the baking parchment on top.
  5. Once cooled remove the disk of paper from the top and take the cake out from the tin, leaving it wrapped in the baking paper.
  6. Skewer a couple of holes into the cake and spoon over a few tablespoons of brandy.
  7. Wrap the cake in more baking paper and foil and store in an airtight container.
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In the build up to Christmas you need to feed the cake, you want to do this several times by making holes using a skewer or cocktail stick and spooning over a few tablespoons of brandy and letting it soak in. Wrap it up in foil and store in air tight container, feeding with brandy every week or 2.

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These few months leading up to christmas are some of our favourite out of the whole year and we have all sorts of yummy bakes planned for both Halloween and Christmas!