Food: Christmas Cake

Every year I make Christmas Cake, feed it with booze, and then top it with marzipan and icing.  Every year when I come to eat it, I then pick off the icing and marzipan and feed them to Mr Stella.  As does everyone else in the family.  Yet another Christmas Family Tradition, then.

Actually, I love the fruity, booziness of the cake itself, and making the cake on the last weekend in November and then giving it a top of brandy every Saturday morning in the run up to the big day is all part of the festivities. And one I'm happy to keep.

Thankfully we've long since dispensed with spending money we cannot spare on unwanted gifts for people who have everything they need anyway.  How do parents make Christmas special when so many children seem to get whatever they want when ever they want it?  A nightmare.


Anyway, back to The Cake



The recipe I use is adapted from Nigel Slater, as is so much of what we eat; this one comes from his first (2005) Kitchen Diaries.  The adaptations reflect the easy availability or not of ingredients here in France and personal preferences.

250g Butter
175g caster sugar
75g demerara sugar
1 tablespoon black treacle
250g dried figs
250g dried apricots
150g stoned prunes
350g raisins
65g ground almonds
100g flaked almonds
1 orange
1 lemon
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
3 tablespoons of Ratafia (because that is what I have!  Brandy is more normal)

Lined and greased 20cm cake tin.  I ran out of baking parchment but using heavy duty tin with a removable base averted disaster.

Prep the fruit. Destone the prunes, remove any stems from the figs and cut the lot up into small pieces about the same size as the raisins.  I use scissors rather than a knife.

In a mixer, beat the butter, sugar and treacle together until light and fluffy.  Scrape a few times as the treacle can coagulate at the bottom.  Beat in the eggs at which point it will curdle into every cake bakers nightmare. Except mine, as my sponge mixes always curdle and always come out fine.  It even happened when studying at Ballymaloe, using the same ingredients and equipment as everyone else!

Add the zest and juice of the lemon and orange to the bowl of fruit, plus the flaked almonds and the Ratafia. Mix thoroughly.

In a separate bowl sieve the flour and baking powder, then stir in the ground almonds. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the curdled egg mix, then fold that into the fruit mixture.  It will look deeply worrying, but smell great.

Pour into the prepared cake tin, smooth the top and bake in a preheated oven at gas mark 3 for one hour, before turning the oven down to gas mark 2 for a further one and a half to two hours.  It is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Leave in the tin to cool.  This years was left in the turned off oven to cool as one of the feral cats had decided the kitchen was a warm and safe place to be. She has been known to pinch legs of lamb from kitchens, so I was taking no chances!  And that cake did smell rather good.

Once cool, wrap thoroughly; and then once a week, spike with a skewer and feed with more booze .

The finished article from last year.  I'm hoping to improve on my icing skills, but the skier stays.