Christmas Cake

One of the relatively few areas of cooking where the British do win convincingly against good French cooking is with a fruit cake and nowhere more so than in the epitome of this, the Christmas cake. Indeed a fruit cake is called cake a l'anglaise in France and is honestly a rather disappointing affair.

A good Christmas cake is at the heart of the celebration for me. It needs to be moist and fruity with hints of citrus, almond, spices and alcohol but above all it needs to cut well, not be crumbly. Over the years I have experimented with many recipes, including those of my mother, aunt and grandmother which they handed down to me in their own recipe collections. Traditional recipes do produce crumbly cakes that need to be kept for several months and fed with alcohol; even then the result may still be dry and crumbly. They also happen to be a lot of work in the making with all the creaming of butter and adding eggs bit by bit and they often sink in the middle. So, in the last few years I have used a boiled fruit cake recipe, which in my view offers a number of considerable advantages over the traditional method; quick to make, no need to keep, it will be ready to eat in 48 hours although it will keep for a month at least, deliciously moist and crumb-free. Indeed the perfect cake and a very unorthodox method.

Tips for Success

Don't skimp on the ingredients, a good Christmas cake is not cheap, especially in alcohol – use brandy (or rum if you prefer the taste).

It is almost impossible to buy good quality candied peel any longer (the process of making it is very laborious) so I use the rinds of 2 boiled oranges for their flavour. This works amazingly well. If you prefer you may substitute 120 g chopped candied peel which you will have to buy in whole pieces from a specialist supplier (use equal parts orange, lemon and citron - called cédrat in France) and then shred very finely with a sharp knife, pieces need to be thinner than a matchstick. This is hard work and will take you 20-30 minutes.

Know your oven. I quote the temperatures that work in my current oven without the fan. Oven temperatures vary from what is on the dial and due to the high sugar content the cake can burn readily. This will give a very unpleasant flavour; if it does happen cut off all the burnt areas with a sharp knife, once it is iced no-one will be any the wiser.

Never open the oven door before the cake is cooked, if in doubt turn the heat down to prevent burning and leave the cake longer. Actual cooking times will vary according to the oven temperature and the thickness of the cake mixture. Test the cake for final doneness by poking it with a skewer, the tip should come out clean. If it has a sticky paste stuck to it the cake is not done.

Use a spring form tin, 20-22 cm in diameter and line the base and sides of the tin with greaseproof paper. I don't find it necessary to cover the tin in brown paper.

Always use unsalted butter, never margarine.

Bake the cake on an oven tray as butter will ooze out during baking and burn on the oven floor.

Ingredients:

200g unsalted butter
200g soft brown sugar
250 ml brandy
400 g each of sultanas, raisins and currants (or 1.25 kg mixed dried fruit – all dried fruit is cleaned these days and does not need to be rubbed with flour and picked over as in the past)
250 g glacé
cherries
125 g ground almonds
2-3 drops real almond essence
1 tsp ground mixed spice
2 oranges
3 large eggs
200 g plain flour sifted with 1 ½ tsp baking powder.

Method:

Boil the oranges in a pressure cooker for 45 minutes until very soft. I do a batch of oranges once a year like this as I use them to make a delicious orange and almond cake (recipe to follow). If not using a pressure cooker, boil for 3 hours until very tender. Cool, peel off the skin and chop the skin roughly with a sharp knife, discarding the insides.

Pre-heat the oven to 130 degrees C, line the tin with greaseproof paper

Halve the glacé cherries and place in a large heavy bottomed pan along with the chopped orange rinds, dried fruits, brandy, butter, spice and sugar. Bring the mixture to the boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Stir in the ground almonds and leave until tepid. The almonds will swell in the mixture and go grainy.

In the pan, stir in the eggs and flour sifted with the baking powder. Spoon it into the lined tin and smooth the top flat, leaving a small indentation in the middle to take account of the rise of the cake.

(The cake can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours before baking at this point; if so increase cooking time by 45 minutes.)

Bake for 3 hours, turning the temperature down to 120 after the first hour.

Keep for at least 48 hours before icing.

Ice with marzipan and royal icing as normal; I always buy ready made marzipan and use royal icing made with 250g icing sugar and 1 egg white beaten with a Kenwood chef and enough lemon juice to form a stiff white paste (the points of the paste dabbed on a finger should stand firm).

A White Christmas Cake

A rather decadent and sumptious alternative is made by replacing the brandy with white rum and the 1.5 kg of dried fruits with 750 g sultanas and 750 g of a mix of chopped cystallised pineapple, red and and yellow cherries, candied apricots, candied figs, pecan nut halves and angelica.