Festivus-for-the-rest-of-us ? Cake

Okay so it’s a Christmas cake, but my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas in the religious sense so I feel like I should call it something other than that. My dad requests a Christmas cake each year. It must be one with marzipan and icing and lots of fruit. He’s very traditional when it comes to cake!

This year I volunteered to make the cake (as well as the pudding and the gingerbread house!) and emailed my granny to get the recipe. It’s a very simple cake to make as most of the fruit is added in equal quantities. You could definitely substitute different fruits if you wanted to, but I would recommend that the citrus peel was left in. Next year I might try figs as an additional fruit.

To apply the marzipan layer to the cake you need to add a layer of jam (I used strawberry) which is why the top of the cake is glistening in this photo. The trickiest bit of making the cake was rolling the marzipan and the icing, neither of which wanted to stay as a one large piece for me to put on the cake.

Especially the marzipan. It was store-bought and ended not really being very nice. Next year I will make my own as I like a really almondy flavour in marzipan and this stuff was really bland.

This is the cake totally covered with marzipan. Not really very appetising.

The finished cake looked really pretty and white! On Christmas Day I added some ribbon around the circumference of the cake and put some little Santa ornaments on top. It was very cute. The cake itself was quite crumbly, but not at all dry as some fruit cakes can be. Next year I might add a little more butter to make it hold together a little better.

Christmas Cake

from my Grandmother

CAKE INGREDIENTS

140g plain flour

60g self-raising flour

170g caster sugar

170g butter

170g sultanas

170g cherries, chopped

grated rind and juice of 1 small lemon

115g glace pineapple

40g crystallised ginger

40g citron peel

55g chopped walnuts

2 tbs brandy or sherry

3 eggs

CAKE PROCEDURE

Cream the butter and sugar. Add lemon juice and brandy.
Place dry ingredients in a bowl and set to one side. Preheat oven to 150C.
Beat the eggs into the butter and sugar. Slowly add the dry ingredients until fully incorporated.
Place mixture in an 8 inch tin and bake in oven for one hour.
Turn down the heat to 140C and bake for a further 2 hours or until a stick inserted into the cake comes out cleanly.

ICING INGREDIENTS

500g marzipan

non lumpy jam

1 egg white

icing sugar

ICING PROCEDURE

Mix the jam with water to make it spreadable. Cover the cake completely with jam.
Use half of the marzipan for the top and half for the sides. Knead the marzipan well. Put a powdering of icing sugar on your board and rolling pin so the marzipan doesn’t stick.
Roll out a circle for the top and place it on the cake. Break the amount for the sides in half and roll them into long tubes. Squash the tubes flat and with a bit of luck and teasing they will fit around. (That’s my Granny’s actual words, so cute!)
Add icing sugar and egg white together with some hot water until the icing is pliable.
Make the icing into one large round if you can and flip it over the cake, using your hands to mold it to fit.