Christmas Cake

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 lb mixed dried fruit
  • 4 oz candied peel
  • 2 - 4 oz quartered glace cherries
  • 2 oz shredded almonds or walnuts
  • 10 oz plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 rounded tsp mixed spice
  • 1 rounded dessert spoon cocoa
  • 8 oz butter
  • 8 oz dark brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon black treacle
  • 1 dessertspoon coffee essence
  • grated rind of orange or lemon
  • large pinch of salt
  • 3 tablespoons of rum or brandy
  • 4 eggs

Method

  1. Three days before you intend to make the cake, prepare the mixed dried fruit and put in a large jar. Sprinkle over the brandy or rum, cover the jar closely and leave for three days , shaking it at intervals
  2. Line an 8” cake tin with two thicknesses of brown paper and then a double thickness of greaseproof paper.
  3. Add cherries, peel and nuts to the soaked fruit
  4. Sieve flour with baking powder, cocoa, salt and spice.
  5. Cream the fat with the grated rind. Add sugar and cream again very thoroughly.
  6. Beat in the treacle, coffee essence and then eggs beating the mixture very well between each addition.
  7. Fold in half the flour very lightly , then add soaked fruit etc and the remaining flour alternately including any liquid not absorbed by the fruit. Add almond essence
  8. Put the mixture into the prepared cake tin, hollowing from the center to the edge. Cook at 300deg F (gas 2) for the first two hours, then at 275 (gas 1) for the remaining 1 1/2 hours. Leave the cake in the oven with the heat off for half an hour.
Nigel’s Mam has been making this cake since 1959. She got the recipe from the BBC where it won a competition for Christmas cakes. This was the year they got their first television. The recipe came from a Mrs. G.M. Arscott of Edinburgh