Howdy ladies and gentlemen. 5 days away from Christmas are we, and I am chillin like a villin with a week off from work. What a perfect time to snatch a few days away from the daily rut and for once enjoy the aroma of the coffee and not drink it impulsively because you want to wake up. And I have been asked, this, many times as to what are my plans for the holidays. You see, I don’t have a plan. I don’t want to go anywhere, see anything, or particularly “do” anything because I’d very much like a few days of homeness, doing absolutely nothing. Or doing things that I never get a chance to. For example? Bake a cake, try some gingerbread, have cheese pav bhaji for dinner, watch late night movies with the husband and cats and sleep without thinking that that cruel 7:45 alarm is going to ring. Sometimes staying indoors is the perfect idea of a great vacation, specially with a good Instant Christmas Cake Recipe by your side.
Okay, to begin with, please don’t be put off by the word instant. It’s only instant by the fruit soaking part and not by way this Instant Christmas Cake Recipe is whipped up. There is no instant mix in it but those soaked fruit bit. Also, when I say instant, I mean you have to boil and keep for atleast 2-3 hours. So basically it’s instant “relatively” and not really dump and go. But I can assure you that the {little} effort that is required to make this is totally worth it.
Instant Christmas Cake Recipe: What you’ll need
Ingredients
For boiling
Orange Juice: 3 cups
Raisins- dark and light- 2 large tbsp
Candied orange- 2, chopped
Dried cranberries- 1/3rd cup chopped
Candied fruits of your choice- 1/3rd cup
Dates- I hate dates so no for me, you can
Dark/White Rum- 1/3rd cup
Orange Zest- 1 teaspoon
A stick of cinnamon
Nutmeg powder- 1 teaspoon
Candied or fresh ginger- chopped finely- 1 teaspoon
For Caramel
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
For Cake mixture
150g unsalted butter
200g self raising flour
100g castor sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp of ground nutmeg
1 tsp of ground clove
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground cardamom
Butter paper
How To make Christmas Cake
Boil
Add orange juice in a sauce pan, add all the boiling ingredients and reduce it to half. Once cooled add Rum and let it be in the refrigerator for about 3-4 hours or ideally overnight.
Make
For caramel, add sugar and water to a saucepan and simmer till a nice brown colour is achieved and is thickened.
Mix
In a bowl add all dry ingredients and mix. In another bowl cream butter and sugar, followed by eggs and vanilla.
Now mix the dry ingredients to wet.
Take the soaked fruits out and coat them in 1 teaspoon of flour. This will make sure it stays put and not sink at the bottom when you make it. Add about 3 heaped tbsp to the cake mix.
Next add caramel, a little soaking liquid and a pinch of nutmeg powder and fold in gently.
Bake
Line a baking tray with parchment or butter paper. Preheat your oven to 220.
Now fill it half or 3/4th and bake for 1 hour at 170-180
Cool and serve!
You could serve it with a dusting of icing sugar or a classic orange glaze, buut we are not too fond of extrta sugar here so its as is for us. Now to get going with the Panettone. Fingers crossed.
