Labour weekend! In Canterbury it is the first holiday / long weekend since Queen’s birthday, the first proper break after the desolate and frosty winter and the moist-windowed early spring, and - weather allowing - the harbinger of summer holidays to come. It is also a good time to make Christmas cake, for a dense fruitcake tastes best when it has had a couple of months to stew in its own juices (ie liquor). It is far richer and more satisfying than the one Mr Ernest Adams makes – no disrespect Ernie, I still like your icing – and is the sort of thing that you can take smugly to pre-Christmas drinks and nibbles type events while everyone else looks shamefaced at their doughy store-bought mince pies, you know, the ones they tarted up with a sprinkle of icing sugar.
This is based on the recipe my mum uses for Christmas cake, which is in a very "retro" / "vintage" cookbook and is attributed to someone called Betty Dunleavy (acknowledge your sources). I did not like it when I was young, in the same way that I did not like mushrooms or broccoli, but it really is very good and over time I have come round to the way of the fruitcake. It is un-iced, but you could rectify that pretty easily, either the labour intensive old fashioned way (family recipes and or the internet will tell you how) or the easy way (store-bought white or almond paste icing). Figure it out yourself, you bum.
I have amended / extended the recipe somewhat, so much so that the original half page recipe is now about four pages long, but I am unapologetic.
INGREDIENTS
Fruit:
- 1.2kg mixed dried fruit of your choice
- 6T / 90ml spirits such as rum, brandy or sweet sherry
Wet:
- 225g butter
- 1 1/3c brown sugar
- 1t vanilla essence, or almond, if you have no taste
- 2T golden syrup (aka two long squirts)
- 4 eggs
Dry:
- 60-70g nuts (such as almonds or walnuts), finely chopped
- 2 ½c plain white flour
- 3T cornflour
- ½t baking powder
- ½t baking soda
- 2t mixed spice
- 1t ground nutmeg
Other things:
- 70g (one little packet) blanched almonds (optional)
- Brown paper
- White baking or greaseproof paper
- 7 or 8 inch round or square tin
- Time and patience
DAY ONE
1) Mix together the fruit
Here’s how my mix broke down. All measurements are approximate because my $7 supermarket-bought scales are a bit rubbish:
Both the dates and the apricots came pre-chopped, not because I approve of convenience foods in general but because an extra $1.25 makes up for me getting angry and sticky. It turns out that chopped dates are covered in rice flour to stop them sticking together. This led to much peering at them to make sure that they hadn’t crystallised and gone off but sticking one in my mouth with apprehension sorted that out.
2) Sprinkle / pour over the spirits
I rounded up (... a bit) and used mostly brandy and a bit of limoncello out of curiosity. Also, the limoncello has been living in the freezer for months because we keep forgetting to use it. This is how we know we’re grown ups.
Give it a stir. Have a brandy, it’s just sitting there. Leave the fruit somewhere cool overnight...
DAY TWO
...or for two days if you end up out most of the day and decide that it’s too late to spend the evening baking a cake for 4 hours and you’d rather watch QI and anyway it's a long weekend.
DAY THREE
Give the fruit a wee stir. Yep, it'll be fine.
3) Preheat your oven to 150°C
4) Prepare the tin
This is like arts and crafts, but far more time-consuming and annoying. You need to line your tin with four thicknesses of paper – two brown, two white. According to my recipe “care must be taken to mitre the corners well so that the cooked cake will be of an even shape” but I think that that’s really extra for experts and / or anal people.
I have developed A System for this step, which is fundamentally the same each year, with variations as I either screw up or think of something better. This year’s variation was to have two circles each of brown and white, and two long strips of brown and white, about 65cm long and 25cm wide which I folded in half lengthways and fitted in to one another. I then cut little 1cm slits along one of the edges and folded them up so that when I put it in the tin it would sit nicely.
Spend 5 minutes trying to get the long bit to sit nicely in your broken springform pan before putting the circle bits in the middle.
This probably makes no sense, so here’s a picture. It is probably of limited value as just after I took it I cut the tabs off of the brown circles because I had a better idea.
Important! Make sure the paper sticks out a couple of inches higher than the top of the tin. I cut mine down even further after this picture when I realised my lovely cuff was too tall for the other tray to go back in the oven (see step 11a).
Be thankful that this step is over. I hear there's brandy floating around somewhere.
5) Mix wet things
Put on your apron. Today - piratical.
6) Sift dry things
Sift the flour, the baking powder, the baking soda, the mixed spice and the nutmeg together. Realise that you never replaced the cornflour that you used a few weeks back, so substitute it with more flour and hope for the best.
7) Line up all your ingredients
11) Cook it
The cake will take 3 ½ - 4 hours. Check it after 3 hours with a skewer just to be sure, especially if your oven has a history of angry outbursts.
Before you do the dishes or convince someone else to do them for you, have a taste of the batter. Good, eh!
11a) Take advantage of a hot oven
If you’re not totally fed up with cooking, you might as well cook something that needs a slow oven. You could try meringues, for instance; I'll post a recipe in due course (anywhere from 2 days to 6 months). I went with this great River Cottage recipe for baked rhubarb. How industrious!
12) Prepare the cake for lockdown
Once the cake is all cooked and smelling marvellous (go on, have a sniff), let it cool down completely, possibly overnight (which means we are now at DAY FOUR). Remove the paper except for the last layer, or whatever works without ruining the cake. If you are in the mood for more booze, brush the top of the cake with brandy (or whatever), perhaps a tablespoon or so, before wrapping it all up tightly in foil and putting it in an airtight container.
Here’s how my mix broke down. All measurements are approximate because my $7 supermarket-bought scales are a bit rubbish:
- 150g apricots
- 150g mixed peel – not because I like it that much but because that’s how much there is in the packet and I didn’t want to be wasteful because what else was I going to use it in? (suggestions welcome)
- 275g currants – ie what was left in the bag
- 175g dried cranberries – ditto
- 225g dates
- 225g of what appeared to be raisins, but which may have been very sad sultanas
Both the dates and the apricots came pre-chopped, not because I approve of convenience foods in general but because an extra $1.25 makes up for me getting angry and sticky. It turns out that chopped dates are covered in rice flour to stop them sticking together. This led to much peering at them to make sure that they hadn’t crystallised and gone off but sticking one in my mouth with apprehension sorted that out.
 |
| Festive! |
Note: no disgusting glacé cherries. Bad and wrong.
2) Sprinkle / pour over the spirits
I rounded up (... a bit) and used mostly brandy and a bit of limoncello out of curiosity. Also, the limoncello has been living in the freezer for months because we keep forgetting to use it. This is how we know we’re grown ups.
Give it a stir. Have a brandy, it’s just sitting there. Leave the fruit somewhere cool overnight...
DAY TWO
...or for two days if you end up out most of the day and decide that it’s too late to spend the evening baking a cake for 4 hours and you’d rather watch QI and anyway it's a long weekend.
DAY THREE
Give the fruit a wee stir. Yep, it'll be fine.
3) Preheat your oven to 150°C
Poor slow oven.
4) Prepare the tin
This is like arts and crafts, but far more time-consuming and annoying. You need to line your tin with four thicknesses of paper – two brown, two white. According to my recipe “care must be taken to mitre the corners well so that the cooked cake will be of an even shape” but I think that that’s really extra for experts and / or anal people.
I have developed A System for this step, which is fundamentally the same each year, with variations as I either screw up or think of something better. This year’s variation was to have two circles each of brown and white, and two long strips of brown and white, about 65cm long and 25cm wide which I folded in half lengthways and fitted in to one another. I then cut little 1cm slits along one of the edges and folded them up so that when I put it in the tin it would sit nicely.
Spend 5 minutes trying to get the long bit to sit nicely in your broken springform pan before putting the circle bits in the middle.
This probably makes no sense, so here’s a picture. It is probably of limited value as just after I took it I cut the tabs off of the brown circles because I had a better idea.
 |
| Make sure that when you use your snips you have a grown up there to supervise. |
 |
| No mitre-ing needed! |
Be thankful that this step is over. I hear there's brandy floating around somewhere.
5) Mix wet things
Put on your apron. Today - piratical.
 |
| Yarr. |
In a bowl big enough to hold all the things in the world, soften the butter, add the sugar, the essence and the golden syrup and beat them until they are light and creamy. Whip it good. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
 |
| Creamy beige. |
See how lovely and orange the yolks are! They are from my mum’s happy chickens.
6) Sift dry things
Sift the flour, the baking powder, the baking soda, the mixed spice and the nutmeg together. Realise that you never replaced the cornflour that you used a few weeks back, so substitute it with more flour and hope for the best.
7) Line up all your ingredients
 |
| Asparagus is an optional extra. |
Aren’t you organised! Note the greenness of the nuts – I am using pistachios to be festive. Get the baking ones, not the brine-y ones unless you like salty pockets in your cake.
8) Get mixing
Add half of the fruit, the dry stuff and the nuts to your buttery wet mix. Unless you have an industrial beater you will need to dust off your Popeye muscles, grab a spoon and do it by hand.
Add the rest and mix until it is thoroughly combined. By this stage I had given up on the spoon and had deployed my favourite kitchen accessories, the latex gloves.
8) Get mixing
Add half of the fruit, the dry stuff and the nuts to your buttery wet mix. Unless you have an industrial beater you will need to dust off your Popeye muscles, grab a spoon and do it by hand.
Add the rest and mix until it is thoroughly combined. By this stage I had given up on the spoon and had deployed my favourite kitchen accessories, the latex gloves.
 |
| Great success! |
9) Stick it in the tin
Make sure you don’t mess up all your good paper work. Smoosh it down hard.
Make sure you don’t mess up all your good paper work. Smoosh it down hard.
10) Decorate it
... but only if you feel like it. I’ve used blanched almonds. A wee pack does the trick. You can use those awful cherries too, apparently, but I don’t see why anyone would want to ruin their cake like that.
... but only if you feel like it. I’ve used blanched almonds. A wee pack does the trick. You can use those awful cherries too, apparently, but I don’t see why anyone would want to ruin their cake like that.
 |
| Vaseline lensed for your viewing pleasure. |
11) Cook it
The cake will take 3 ½ - 4 hours. Check it after 3 hours with a skewer just to be sure, especially if your oven has a history of angry outbursts.
Before you do the dishes or convince someone else to do them for you, have a taste of the batter. Good, eh!
11a) Take advantage of a hot oven
If you’re not totally fed up with cooking, you might as well cook something that needs a slow oven. You could try meringues, for instance; I'll post a recipe in due course (anywhere from 2 days to 6 months). I went with this great River Cottage recipe for baked rhubarb. How industrious!
 |
| Mr Longbean grew this, but I will eat it. |
12) Prepare the cake for lockdown
Once the cake is all cooked and smelling marvellous (go on, have a sniff), let it cool down completely, possibly overnight (which means we are now at DAY FOUR). Remove the paper except for the last layer, or whatever works without ruining the cake. If you are in the mood for more booze, brush the top of the cake with brandy (or whatever), perhaps a tablespoon or so, before wrapping it all up tightly in foil and putting it in an airtight container.
You can re-brandy the cake every week or so up until you need to eat it. You can eat it right away if you like, but the longer the cake sits, the nicer it will be.
SOME UNDISCLOSED DAY IN THE FUTURE
13) Eat it
As long as you keep the cake wrapped up and in an airtight container, it will last for a very, very long time. Forever perhaps! But definitely at least seven months, which is how long the last Christmas cake lasted because we forgot about the last chunk of it.
You are a festive kitchen god/dess! Well done. Have another brandy.
SOME UNDISCLOSED DAY IN THE FUTURE
13) Eat it
As long as you keep the cake wrapped up and in an airtight container, it will last for a very, very long time. Forever perhaps! But definitely at least seven months, which is how long the last Christmas cake lasted because we forgot about the last chunk of it.
You are a festive kitchen god/dess! Well done. Have another brandy.
Suggestions, anecdotes and additions welcome, but not complaints. Never complaints.
