Easy Last Minute Christmas Cake. Check Our Step-By-Step Guide To Bake Up A Sweet Treat For Your Loved Ones. Delia's Last-minute Brandied Christmas Cake recipe. Yes, I know, it's happened to me too.
My Christmas cake has developed over the years to become a delicious easy bake, which can be made last minute as it doesn't require feeding.
This moist fruit cake doesn't need to be fed so it's the perfect last-minute Christmas cake.
The cake itself is very easy to make - the tricky part is the icing, but you can obviously decorate it.
You can have Easy Last Minute Christmas Cake using 16 ingredients and 10 steps. Here is how you achieve it.
Ingredients of Easy Last Minute Christmas Cake
- You need 1 kg of mixed dried fruit.
- Prepare 100 g of mixed peel.
- It's 100 ml of strong hot tea.
- You need 2 tablespoon of marmalade.
- You need 100 ml of alcohol (I use a mix of port, brandy, sherry & amaretto, but you can you the flavors you like or substitute the alcohol for orange juice).
- Prepare of Zest of 2 oranges.
- It's 250 g of margarine.
- You need 250 g of soft brown sugar.
- It's 4 of eggs.
- You need 1 tablespoon of golden syrup.
- Prepare 50 g of walnuts chopped.
- You need 25 g of blanched almonds chopped.
- It's 25 g of pecan nuts, chopped.
- Prepare 100 g of self-raising flour.
- It's 150 g of plain flour.
- You need 2 teaspoons of mixed spice.
Here is how you achieve that. Ingredients of Easy Last Minute Christmas Cake. Fruit cake can divide opinion, much like Brussels Sprouts or Marmite. Some people love it, others aren't fond of dried fruit in cakes (looking at you, kids of mine).
Easy Last Minute Christmas Cake instructions
- Put the dried fruit, glace cherries, and mixed peel into a large container. Mix the hot tea and marmalade until the marmalade has dissolved, pour over the fruit and mix well. Add the alcohol and orange zest and mix well. Cover and leave to soak, stirring each day, leave for a minimum of 3 days but I sometimes leave mine for a week or two, which only adds to the flavor. Feel free to have a tipple when stirring!.
- Grease and line an 8-inch tin, I also line the outside of my tin to stop the cake from colouring on the side too quickly. Preheat the oven to 140C/120C Fan/Gas 1..
- Add the sugar and margarine to a large bowl and beat until lighter in colour and creamy, I prefer to use an electric hand mixer, but you can do it by hand. Add the eggs one at a time and continue to mix until they are fully incorporated if the mix starts to curdle add a handful of the flour..
- Add the flours, mixed spice, nuts, golden syrup and a pinch of salt, mix by hand until blended together. Stir in the soaked fruit and mix well..
- Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface. (at this point add your nuts and cherries for decoration if not using icing to decorate)..
- Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 4 ½ - 5 hours, it should feel firm to the touch, be golden brown and a skewer inserted should come out clean. Check after an hour and every hour and cover with foil with the cake is colouring too quickly. Leave to cool completely in the cake tin..
- When the cake is completely cool, wrap in a double layer of greaseproof paper with our removing the lining paper as this helps to keep the cake moist. Then wrap in foil and place in an airtight container, I find a sweet tin works best..
- This will keep for 6 months, so the ultimate make-ahead. If you want to feed the cake, pierce the cake all over with a skewer and pour over a little sherry, each week before Christmas. However, I never feed my Christmas cake, I always forget and this recipe doesn’t need it, the cake will stay rich and moist up until Christmas and beyond. 1 quantity of the mix will give you 1 round or square 8 inch Christma cake, but it can also be used to make 16 smaller individual cakes or 2 loaf tin cakes..
- Decoration with out icing: Extra blanched almonds Extra glace cherries Extra Whole walnuts 3 tablespoon apricot jam Once the cake is in the tin ready for the oven use a selection of nuts and cherries to decorate the top. When ready to serve, heat up the jam in a saucepan and brush all over the top of the cake, I like to do 2 or 3 layers to make it very shiny..
- Decoration with icing 500g golden marzipan 500g ready to roll fondant 3 tablespoon apricot jam Icing sugar for dusting When ready to decorate, place the cake on the serving dish. Heat up the jam and brush all over the top of the cake. Using icing sugar to roll out the marzipan, I use the bottom of my cake tin as a rough guide to the size of my circle, cut it out with a knife and place on top of the cake. Roll out the fondant again using icing sugar, again use the bottom of the cake tin as a gu.
Yet a fruity Christmas cake is a must come the festive season, IMHO. This last minute fruit cake needs to be eaten soon after it is baked as it doesn't contain alcohol. This last minute Christmas cake recipe uses booze-filled mincemeat as it's main component so the weeks of feeding cake with booze are cut out completely. Whisk the eggs and then add to the mixture. My family requests this rummy Bundt cake from me at all our get-togethers.
