It’s 12 days to Christmas and I think it’ll be fabulous to step into the river of festivities with an old fashioned, gorgeous Christmas cake recipe. No frills, no novelty or new infusions, no unnecessary covering and one that literally smells of Christmas with the heady smells of spiced rum, cinnamon and nutmeg. God, I wish you could taste a piece right about now (as me, right now!) and you’ll know why a good Christmas cake recipe is not to be toiled with.
While I am all in for experimental flavours most of the time, Christmas however, I think, demands the stamp of familiarity. Because you see, Christmas issa mood. It’s a lot about those known flavours spinning magic inside your heart and senses than just an occasion to showcase how far you have come in your culinary endeavour. I might just jump out of the window if you told me Christmas Cake with a twist. Uh-uh. No sir. Nada. No
entiende. I shall not have it.
For me, a Christmas cake has to be almost identical to the ones we used to get boxed in colour with flecks of dry fruits and nuts and one that fills the whole room in an aroma that makes you want to rewatch Polar Express again and again. And this Christmas cake recipe is it.
The only caveat however is that the fruits must absolutely be soaked a month before for this. Because 50% of the flavour comes from that spiced rum laden with all the fruits. But in case you want an instant cake, here’s one you can use.
Also, I have no substitute for eggless cooking. I LOVE eggs and eat eggs and don’t think I’ll uite ever be cooking without one. But I think butter milk is a sub or banana. Dont count on me for this though.
Alright then!
To the Christmas Cake Recipe
You’ll need:
50 grams butter in room temperature
60 ml sunflower oil (1/4th of a cup)
2 eggs (Use good quality eggs)
3/4th of a cup demerrera or brown sugar
1 cup and 2 tbsp self raising flour (If you dont have self raising flour add 1 tsp of baking powder to 1 cup of flour),
a pinch of salt
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of soaked fruits (dark rum + berries + currants + vanilla + 2 sticks of cinnamon, a few star anise, orange zest, orange peel, nutmeg grated and a few cloves)
A handful of almonds and cashew nuts
A loaf tin or a bundt pan or 9″ round cake tin
Parchment or butter paper
How to make the most delish Christmas Cake
Start by whisking the oil and butter in a bowl. Make sure its mixed well.
To the oil-butter mixture, add brown sugar and mix.
Next, add 2 eggs and vanilla extract. At this point, this will look kinda disgusting but its fine 🙂
In another bowl, add flour, salt and sieve.
Now slowly incorporate the dry mixture to the wet mixture. You’ll be left with a caramel coloured delicious looking dough at this stage. But the magic is yet to happen
Next, pour out about 1/2 a cup of soaked fruits and some soaking liquid and add it to the cake. Fold.
Line a cake tin with parchment paper and pour the cake batter in.
Decorate with almond and cashews like the old timers.
Bake at 200 in a 220 degree preheated oven until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean
Decorate with Marzipan or Feed the cake with soaking liquid
I don’t like a lot of frosting in a cake but you can decorate with marzipan leaves and berries. I made a cheaters version of icing sugar berries and leaves to show you how it all looks but ideally, I’ll feed the cake.
Haha, yeah, like I feed muzu and michiko just that the cake wont wake me up at 6 in the morning.
So, what I like to do is make the cake a day or two in advance and then every day bathe the cake (with a brush ofcourse) with some of the soaking liquid. Trust me, this is THE WAY TO GO. What you end up with is a boozy cake that smells of Christmas and transports you straight to santa’s workshop. Uff! So good.
Serving Suggestions
Ofcourse, you can serve it as is- it’s LOVE. But if you were to fancy it up a notch, I’d say use it in a trifle with cherries and fresh cream. Or serve it warm with some vanilla bean whipped cream and a teaspoon of that soaking liquid all around the plate. Add a smidge of crushed rosemary if you like or some dried powdered orange peel. That’s what I am doing for our Christmas party!
I know you all have been waiting on this. So here you go. The much awaited Christmas cake recipe from ours to yours.
Bon Appetit!