WHAT’S COOKING: Rich, fruity Christmas cake

Christmas fruit cakes, and fruity mince pie fillings, are like coriander leaves — people love them or utterly detest them. Many people cannot stand marzipan either, which I find hard to understand. That almondy flavour is one of my favourite tastes, and I love the texture of it too.

There is no marzipan, as yet, on this cake. That will come in the days approaching 25 December. We plan to go all out with proper royal icing too, and my daughter Rebecca has claimed decorating rights.

If you now find yourself keen to make an early Christmas cake this year, this weekend would be a good time to do it.

Here’s my detailed recipe, but I have endeavoured to keep it simple.Not the recipe itself — that has all sorts of ingredients and steps — but I’ve tried to make the directions clear and straightforward.

There are essentially five parts to its preparation:

• Macerating the fruit overnight, in liquor;

• Adding cherries, citrus peel and nuts to that;

• Making a batter, including the wet ingredients being folded in;

• Preparing the tin;

• And baking it.

Pay special attention to the preparation of the springform cake tin: you need baking paper/parchment paper, not wax paper. Note that the insides of the tin are buttered first, then the first layer of baking paper is put in. Then it gets a second set of baking paper, and finally, tin foil gives the underside and sides of the cake yet more protection.

It cooks for four hours, so plan your day or evening accordingly.

Let’s get right into it, but first, go through the recipe and plan your shopping list. Red glacé cherries and little tubs of citrus peel intended for this purpose are found in baking sections of good supermarkets.

Tony and Rebecca’s make-ahead Christmas cake

Ingredients

1kg mixed raisins and sultanas steeped overnight in Chamarel vanilla spiced rum (or similar), plus:

300g glacé cherries

75g citrus peel

500g chopped walnuts or pecans, crushed or chopped

250g whole raw almonds

½ tsp grated nutmeg

½ tsp grated cinnamon

½ tsp mixed spice

½ tsp salt

250g plain cake flour (we used Eureka)

250g unsalted butter at room temperature

250g treacle sugar

4 jumbo eggs

Butter for greasing the inside of the springform cake tin

Method

Macerate 1kg of mixed raisins and sultanas (in more or less equal quantities) in rum overnight.

Before using it in your batter, strain it through a fine sieve. Either discard the liquid or reserve it for use in another dish. (You could pour it over a hot pudding.)

Stir the crushed walnuts/pecans and almonds into the fruit mix. Add red glacé cherries and citrus peel and stir.

Sift the flour and add the salt, cinnamon, mixed spice, and nutmeg.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and treacle sugar together.

Add 4 eggs and beat.

Fold the flour mixture into the creamed butter and sugar.

Fold the wet fruit and nut mixture in.

Line a large (24cm) springform cake tin.

Grease the bottom and the inside edges well with butter.

Cut out two rounds of baking paper to fill the base, and another two to go on top. Cut out two long strips of baking paper to go around the inside, twice — this must protrude higher than the top of the tin by about 3cm.

Place a round of paper in the buttered base and smooth it down — the butter will cause it to stick to the bottom. Do the same around the edges. Place a second round at the base and a second strip all the way around the insides.

Now you have to anchor the paper: this is easier than you think. The paper around the edges will be floppy, but the answer is to spoon the batter in a pile in the centre and gradually push it outwards. The batter will force the paper right to the edges.

Now cut a round of foil, big enough to cover the base (underneath) — place the tin on top of the foil — and all the way up the sides. This will protect the bottom and sides of the cake from the intensity of the heat and should prevent burning or blackening.

Finally, place one round of baking paper lightly on top of the cake (don’t press it down) and the other loosely on top of that.

Bake at 150°C in a preheated oven for 4 hours — avoid using the fan setting. Have a lovely chat over wine or whisky in the lounge or at the dinner table, reminiscing about Christmases past. Try not to wake the kids or grandkids up. Keep an eye on the clock, or ask Alexa or Siri to remind you when it’s time for the cake to come out.

Remove it from the oven and immediately prick it many times and pour a generous amount of brandy over it, while it is still hot. Then place it on a wire rack to cool overnight.

In the morning, pour over some more brandy. You’ll have to use your instincts for this. It needs to be wet, but not soggy.

Store it wrapped in wax or parchment paper, in an airtight container, in a dark cupboard.

Every seven days from that moment, pour more brandy over.

When December comes around, decide whether you want to cover it with marzipan and ice it, or leave it au naturel. We’ll be icing ours and, yes, we all love marzipan. Happy Not-Quite Christmas. DM