This is a really delicious baked Christmas Cake that will last for ages. There is no mixed peel in it as I hate it, but I've added macadamias which go slightly crunchy and delicious where they touch the tin. Unfortunately this means it doesn't cut particularly well, but that's just another excuse to clean up the crumbs! I prefer to split this recipe into two large cake tins - they cook better and one makes a nice gift, unlike the positively enormous boiled pudding my family used to make for Christmas Day - read below!
250g sultanas
1.25kgs mixed dried fruit - including raisins, currants, glace cherries, dates and figs and more sultanas if needs be.
1 cup brandy or sherry
230g butter
230g dark brown sugar
5 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 lemon - juice and rind
1 Tbs golden syrup
60g macadamias
230g plain flour
60g SR flour
1tsp mixed spice
Raw almonds and dried cranberries to decorate
Soak fruit overnight in brandy.
Grease and line base and sides of two large round cake tins and preheat oven to 160•C.
Cream the butter and sugar well then add the eggs and beat after each addition. Add the lemon juice and rind, golden syrup, vanilla and mix well. Add the marinated fruit and macadamias and mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients and stir (see below for instructions on stirring!). Pour into your cake tins and decorate.
Then bake in a low oven for 1 hour in the middle shelf. Put a tray of water on the lowest oven shelf - this is to keep the cake from drying out too much. Test the cake by inserting a skewer in the middle if it comes out clean the cake is cooked, but most likely it will need further cooking so turn the oven down to 140• and set your timer for thirty minutes to check again, then fifteen minutes if you need extra time. This way if you have two differently sized cakes you will make sure they are cooked beautifully. Allow the cakes to cool in the tin before turning out and then store them in an airtight container to keep moist.
The tradition in my family is for every member of the household to have a turn at stirring the cake for good luck - this includes all the children, and reluctant male members of the house too! I also distinctly recall that my grandmother was very particular that the pudding must only be stirred in one direction, and each year there would be a debate as to whether that was clockwise or anti-clockwise - hilarious!
My grandmother's pudding was a boiled one though, so I guess it needed a bit of luck... The mixture would be mounded onto an enormous piece of wet floured calico which would then take three or four people to help pull up the sides and secure with string, then the pudding would be lowered into a gigantic pot of boiling water where it would bubble away for hours and hours filling every corner of our huge terrace house with the delicious smell of Christmas. This was all in late October and once the pudding was boiled it would be hung in a corner of the kitchen on a broom handle where it would annoy my father every time he tried to open a cupboard door. I can still hear him shouting "How long is this pudding going to stay here Jean! mutter mutter slam...!"
On Christmas Day the pudding would once again be submerged into boiling water to heat through for dessert, served with brandy butter and custard. Everyone was so fat and full by this stage but you daren't say you were too full to eat any!
Posts
