Recipes for Christmas cookies come from the BBC Good Food website. I tried this method makes about 5 years ago and I have stuck to it ever since. I just made some minor changes, and the result is a beautiful, fruit cake, moist.
In fact I usually end up making one main cake, other, smaller version for mom and dad, and then two even smaller version for children to decorate (check out the last year of the creations here-could there be any more icing on things! oh , and of course it was perfect norm l for my kids like to wear bunny ears for Christmas ...).
Ingredients :
- 200 g glacé cherries roughly chopped
- 100 g dried cranberries
- 200 g plain/all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- Zest and juice of 1 orange
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 175 g unsalted butter, chopped
- 210 g light brown muscavado sugar
- 400 g mixed dried fruit
- 165 ml cherry brandy
- 3 large eggs lightly whisked
- 85 g ground almonds (coarsely ground - not the type that is like flour)
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
Instructions :
- Take a large pan frying pan and add the butter, sugar, dried fruit, glacé cherries, cranberries, orange juice and lemon zest & and all but 4 tablespoons cherry brandy. Heat over medium heat until the mixture comes to a gentle bubble, then reject heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Remove the Pan from the heat and leave to cool for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 300F and 150C line cake tin round spring-form cake 20 cm parchment with (I find it easier to track the first side so they are about 2 "on top of the cake tin, then cut a circle for the base and pushed in).
- Add ground almonds into the fruit mixture is slightly cooled and mix, then stir in the egg.
- Add flour, baking powder and spices and fold together until everything is just combined.
- Spoon the mixture into the Tin and smooth flat with the back of a spoon.
- Bake for 45 minutes, then reduce heat to 275F 140C and cook an additional 1-1 + 1/2, until the chocolate cake on top and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cover the top of the cake with foil if it starts too dark.
- Take out of the oven, and while it is still hot, use a skewer to make a hole of 10-12 all over the cake. Pour the brandy 4 tbsp cherry all over the top of the cake.
- Allow the cake to cool in the Tin. then remove it and wrap in two layers of oil and then in foil. Place in air tight container at room temperature.
- Feeds with 2-3 tbsp cherry brandy after Sunday * until a few days before your marzipan and ice a cake.