A moist fruit cake with zesty lemon, orange and a hint of citrusy Earl Grey. Add a dash of edible essential oil to boost the bergamot flavour if you like
Lucy, our former Food Editor creates lots of delicious meals each month. Her recipes are always packed with flavour and they're super easy too!
See more of Lucy Jessop’s recipes
Lucy Jessop
Lucy, our former Food Editor creates lots of delicious meals each month. Her recipes are always packed with flavour and they're super easy too!
See more of Lucy Jessop’s recipes
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Ingredients
Day 1 - for the fruit
2 Earl Grey tea bags (or regular)
600g mixed dried fruit
200g glacé cherries, quartered
75ml Cointreau or limoncello
¼ tsp bergamot oil for cooking* (optional)
zest and juice of 1 medium orange
zest and juice of 1 lemon
Day 2 - cake batter
225g soft butter, plus extra to grease
225g light brown sugar
4 medium eggs
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground mixed spice
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp bergamot oil* (optional)
100g almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
To feed, optional
3-6 tbsp Cointreau, brandy or sherry
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Step by step
Get ahead
Aim to make the cake about 4 weeks (and up to 12 weeks) ahead to allow the flavours to mature. Soak the fruit up to 48 hours before baking. Store the cake in a cool, dry place in an airtight container. Feed the cake a maximum of 6 times for a boozy flavour, at regular intervals of 1 or 2 weeks, depending on how far ahead you make it – stop feeding the cake a week prior to decorating.
The day before you want to bake the cake, soak the fruit. Add the tea bags to 125ml freshly boiled water, cover and brew for 5 minutes. Place the dried fruit and glacé cherries in a large non-metallic bowl and stir in the Cointreau, bergamot oil (if using) and citrus juices and zests. Pour the hot tea over the fruit (discarding the tea bags). Mix well, cover and set aside at room temperature.
When ready to bake the next day, grease a deep 20cm diameter cake tin and line the base and sides with a double layer of baking paper, ensuring the paper comes above the rim by at least 4cm. Wrap a folded strip of brown paper or newspaper around the sides of the tin and secure with a piece of soaked kitchen string. Prepare a double sheet of baking paper to loosely cover the top of the cake and cut a 5cm hole in the centre to allow steam to escape.
Preheat the oven to 160°C, fan 140°C, gas 3. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a couple of tablespoons of flour if the mixture starts to curdle. Sift over the remaining flour, baking powder, spices and a good pinch of salt and fold in. Add the bergamot oil, if using, and the almonds. Add the soaked fruit (including any liquid) in two stages, folding until the fruit is evenly distributed.
Spoon into the prepared tin and level the top. Cover loosely with the extra prepared paper and bake for 1 hour initially. Reduce the oven to 140°C, fan 120°C, gas 1 and bake for a further 2 hours, or until a metal skewer inserted comes out clean.
Transfer to a cooling rack, leave in the tin for about 1 hour then remove from the tin and discard the lining papers. Use a co*cktail stick to poke holes over the surface of the cake and then slowly drizzle with a tablespoon of Cointreau for the initial feed.
Cool completely, then wrap in baking paper and foil and store in a cool, dry place. Feed another 2-5 times (see Get Ahead, above).
For a smaller cake
If you want to make a smaller cake, halve all the ingredients and bake in a 15cm diameter tin for 45 minutes initially, plus another 1 hour 30 minutes at the lower temperature.
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Whoever finds the fava bean in their slice is considered to have good luck for the coming year. Additionally, a small trinket or figurine is sometimes hidden in the cake, and the person who finds it is said to be the "king" or "queen" of the celebration.
The parchment paper and brown paper linings provide some insulation against the heat of the oven, which means that the cake bakes more evenly. If the tin is not lined in this way then the outside of the cake can cook too quickly, leaving the inside undercooked.
The relation between Christmas and cake is far too old. But another connection between the two is that cake used to be the party highlight of the Twelfth Night, which took place from December 24 to January 5. Another reason is that cake was used to line the stomach after a day of fasting on Christmas Eve.
According to Guinness the world's oldest known cake was found in an Egyptian tomb and is believed to be 4,176 years old. But with the way fruitcake keeps I'm sure Fidelia's cake will have that record beat in no time!
Some say you should make your Christmas cake 6 weeks before eating, but the advice given on Nigella.com is that 12 weeks before is the optimum time to get baking. Your Christmas cake should be fed every 4 to 6 weeks but in the meantime, after baking, it should be stored away in a secure, air tight container.
You can use rum, brandy or whisky for spice, or if you like citrus flavours, try an orange liqueur. Cherry brandy and amaretto will also work well if you prefer these.
Plain flour is fine as the cake isn't going to significantly rise. You are looking to achieve a dense, moist texture that is evenly distributed with flavoursome vine fruits. Gluten free alternatives: opt for a combination of flours.
Our answer. Nigella's Christmas cakes use plain flour rather than self-raising flour. This is partly as the amount of leavening needed for a rich fruit cake is different to that needed for a sponge cake and so the recipe needs a specific amount added separately.
In an oven that's too hot, the outside of the cake cooks at a much faster rate than the inside.A crust forms early on, but as the inside of the cake continues to cook and rise, this crack crusts. You might experience the same problem if the cake recipe has too much leavener or if you've used a pan that's too small.
Be sure of your oven temperature, a long slow bake is what is called for to stop the cake from drying out too much and baking evenly. Position your cake on a shelf about 1/3rd of the way up from the base of the oven. Keep an eye on the baking – start checking your cake for doneness from 2 and a half hours in.
Wrap the cake in greaseproof paper or baking parchment then wrap it in kitchen foil. Store cake in a second layer of foil or in an airtight tin. You can repeat the feeding process every couple of weeks for three or four feeds. However, if the cake makes the work surface damp, appears wet or stodgy, discontinue feeding.
25 rolls around — a fact that gave birth to an unfortunate bit of old Japanese slang: "Christmas cake" was used to refer to an unmarried woman who was over 25 and thus, considered past her prime.
We might like to pretend, based on its name, that fruitcake is a reasonably healthy sweet option, however this is not the case. Fruitcake tends to have high butter, sugar and syrup content, making it high in both fat and calorie content. The same goes for Panettone- the Italian bread that has become a holiday favorite.
Later, spice and dried fruits were added to the recipe to give us a modern day Christmas cake. Christmas cake was traditionally not eaten on Christmas day: Christmas cake was originally eaten on the twelfth day of Christmas. For this reason, it was also known as the twelfth night cake.
A king cake, also known as a three kings cake, is a cake associated in many countries with Epiphany. Its form and ingredients are variable, but in most cases a fève ( lit.'fava bean') such as a figurine, often said to represent the Christ Child, is hidden inside.
Christmas cakes are also commonly made with pudding while a fruit cake uses butter, however there are Christmas cake recipes that do contain butter. The traditional Scottish Christmas cake, also known as the Whisky Dundee, is very popular. It is a light crumbly cake with currants, raisins, cherries and Scotch whisky.
A silver sixpence was placed into the pudding mix and every member of the household gave the mix a stir. Whoever found the sixpence in their own piece of the pudding on Christmas Day would see it as a sign that they would enjoy wealth and good luck in the year to come.
For a long time it's been common practice to include silver Christmas pudding coins, charms or tokens into Christmas pudding. Finding a Christmas coin in your slice of pudding is believed to bring good luck and especially wealth in the coming year.
Introduction: My name is Duane Harber, I am a modern, clever, handsome, fair, agreeable, inexpensive, beautiful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 40 mins
