One of my idiosyncrasies is keeping old family recipes on tatty scraps of paper. Granny’s Christmas Cake is no exception.
Christmas isn’t Christmas without the cake. Who can resist a thick wedge of rich fruit cake whilst snuggled up on the sofa watching the latest schmaltzy Christmas movie offering from Netflix. Back in the day it would be covered in thick layers of marzipan and royal icing and devoured whilst watching the Queen’s Speech on a flickering black and white TV. I always used to peel the marzipan off, I detest the stuff to this day, but I do remember quite liking the crunchy sweetness of the royal icing. My Granny and my Mother both enjoyed their slice with a wedge of mature cheddar, which I found quite odd. Then I married a Yorkshireman and discovered that this was common practice, often accompanied by an apple in his grandmothers case. Still think it’s odd.
Once married with children I took up the Christmas cake challenge myself and, armed with my Granny’s recipe, I turned out some very good cakes. Pretty too, all iced up with royal icing. My ability with royal icing reached a level where I decorated the most gorgeous christening cake for Bozzie’s christening. Then I discovered fondant icing; which in those days had to be made from scratch and entailed visiting every chemist in the area looking for liquid glucose, something not easily come by; and I got my cake decorating mojo back for a while. Once I started my nursing career baking and icing cakes took a backseat since I neither had the time nor the inclination to carry it on. That, and the fact that none of us was overly keen on fruit cake so it tended to go to waste.
Until the year we decided to start having our New Year parties; mainly because several of the girls had children of their own and were unable to go out to celebrate; and I thought a cake would be a cool centrepiece. For that year and the following couple of years I successfully made Granny’s Christmas Cake. Then, disaster struck! My tatty piece of paper went missing, I mean, completely disappeared. I was distraught. I hunted everywhere I could think of, but to no avail. In the end we presumed I must have swept it up with all the rubbish after mixing the last cake and chucked it in the bin. So for the next few years I resorted to numerous searches through cookbooks and internet sites, looking for the best Christmas cake recipes I could find. Some were so long-winded, like soaking the dried fruit a special way for weeks beforehand, and so complicated you needed a degree to just read the recipe; some had a long list of unusual ingredients, such as exotic fruits and nuts, unusual spices or fancy liqueurs to make it “extra special”, you required a mortgage to buy them, if you could find them at all; some were supposed to be “regional” or “artisan” or vegan, or whatever the latest trend happened to be. I even found a chocolate flavoured one. Not a chocolate cake, a chocolate flavoured fruit cake! To me the main ingredients should be simple, the mixed fruit, the cherries, the candied peel and chopped almonds.
Over the years I have found recipes which did the job, from Mary Berry, Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson and many others too numerous to mention but somehow they never quite turned out how I remembered my grandmothers cakes; possibly through rose tinted spectacles since she was, in actuality, an atrocious cook. They rose too much in the middle, they sank in the middle, they burned around the edges or on the top. No matter how closely I followed the recipes they just weren’t the same, and I was sure I was forgetting something important. Not to be daunted I would cover these cakes with the obligatory marzipan and the now readily available fondant icing, most of which ended up in the bin since no-one really likes the stuff; even the dog turns his nose up at it and he’ll eat most things given half the chance. To be honest, it’s too sweet for my liking.
Then last year a minor miracle happened. I had just retired and to fill my now work free days I set about re-organising the kitchen; much to Pauls disgust since the kitchen has always been his domain; and there, tucked in amongst a collection of crumpled up take-away menus shoved to the back of a drawer was the long-lost recipe. Oh, how I rejoiced. With only a couple of weeks to spare I collected my ingredients and the cake was made. And I now knew where I had been going wrong. The newspaper. Granny’s recipe instructs me to wrap the cake tin in 12 layers of newspaper secured with string and to place 12 layers of newspaper on the oven shelf to stand the cake tin on. Since the cake has to be in the oven for a few hours I also turn the fan assist off to mimic an old fashioned oven which helps prevent the cake from burning. Once baked I dutifully fed it brandy up to Christmas Eve when I decided that, given our dislike for icing I would leave it un-iced. The most I did was to stick a piece of tinsel in the middle and dust it with icing sugar. Not quite perfect in looks but it tasted oh so good. The tatty piece of paper was put somewhere safe this time and was used for this years cake with the addition of some almonds placed on top of the mix to decorate the cake prior to baking. This year it not only tastes good but it looks good too.
Since becoming the proud owner of an Instant Vortex Plus Versazone air fryer so many things have become so much easier and that includes this Christmas cake. There are no changes to the recipe since savings are made in both time and cost with the cooking time reduced from 2½ – 3 hours to just one. As with the oven method if the top starts to brown I just secure some foil over the top until the cake is finished.
Ingredients
- 1lb mixed dried fruit
- 8oz candied peel
- 3oz glacé cherries
- 10oz caster sugar
- 8oz butter
- 10fl.oz water
- 12oz plain flour
- Pinch of salt
- 1tsp mixed spice
- 1tsp cinnamon
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 4oz flaked almonds
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1tsp almond essence
- 2tbs brandy
- Blanched almonds to decorate
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 170C
- Grease and line an 8 inch cake tin
- Place mixed fruit, candied peel, cherries, sugar, butter and water in a large saucepan, add a teabag
- Bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, remove teabag and allow to cool
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and mixed spice into a large bowl
- Add the flaked almonds
- Add the cooled fruit and combine well
- Whisk the beaten eggs, almond essence and brandy together and combine with cake mix
- Mix thoroughly (at this point you can summon the whole family to come and stir the cake and make a wish)
- Pour the mix into cake tin
- Wrap the outside of the tin with 12 layers of newspaper and secure with string
- Place 12 layers of newspaper on the oven shelf
- Place cake in oven and bake for 2½ hours
- Check cake after 1 hour and cover the top with foil if it is burning.
- Once cooked through, allow to cool before turning out onto cooling rack
- Wrap cooled cake in 1 layer of greaseproof paper and 2 layers of foil, sealing well and store in a cool dark place.
- Feed with brandy twice a week until Christmas by using a skewer to make holes in the base of the cake and dribbling the brandy from a teaspoon into the holes.
Air Fryer Method
- Follow the recipe to number 10.
- Choose the bake function and preheat the air fryer to 170C.
- When ready place the cake in the air fryer and set the timer for 60 minutes.
- Check the cake after 30 minutes and cover the top with foil to prevent it from burning.
- If the cake is still moist when inserting a skewer reset the air fryer and cook until the skewer comes out clean.
- Continue to follow the recipe from number 15.
Note:
If using blanched almonds to decorate these should be arranged on the top of the cake mix prior to baking.
If icing the cake omit the blanched almonds