Mary Berry’s Classic Christmas Cake Recipe.
It’s the first of December and as promised, I’m back with some festive recipes to get you in the holiday spirit. Throughout the weeks of December, I will be switching it up and including gluten free, vegan, dairy free and vegetarian recipes to cater for all of us this holiday season. Due to the long process of making Christmas Cake, a lot of you will be starting up your process to make sure the cake is ready for your perfect day. Many of you have probably perfected your Christmas Cake recipe over the years, some might be new to it, or maybe you want to experiment with a new recipe? Still trying to hold onto The Great British Bake Off spirit, below I will guide you through baking extraordinaire Mary Berry’s vegetarian friendly Classic Christmas Cake recipe.
Timings:
Making a Christmas Cake can be very time consuming so you will need to prepare very early. The Christmas cake will be the first component baked and will require to be stored in a cold place and fed in intervals with rum, so ideally, you will want to have prepared your cake early in the month. The covering process of the cake should be carried out a week before you intend on serving it, so if you intend on serving it on Christmas Day, ideally, you should begin the covering process on Saturday 18th December.
The overall cooking time for the cake will be between 4 and 4 ½. However, during the process of making the cake, there will be a three day interval where the fruit will need to be soaked in the brandy.
Ingredients Required.
For the Christmas Cake:
- 275g /10 oz of plain flour
- 150ml / ¼ pt of brandy or sherry, plus extra for feeding
- 350g / 12oz of natural glacé cherries, cut in half, rinsed and dried thoroughly
- 350g / 12oz of sultanas
- 500g / 1lb 2oz of currants
- 175g / 6oz of raisins
- 2 oranges, zest only
- 1 ½ tsp of mixed spice
- 250g / 9oz of softened butter
- 250g / 9oz of light or dark muscovado sugar
- 4 large free-range eggs, stored at room temperature
- 1tbsp of black treacle
- 75g / 3oz of blanched almonds, chopped
For the Covering:
- 675g / 1lb 8oz of marzipan
- Icing sugar
- 3tbsp of apricot jam, warmed and sieved
For the Royal Icing:
- 3tsp of lemon juice
- 3 free-range eggs, whites only
- 675g / 1 ½lb icing sugar, sifted
- 1 ½ tsp of glycerine
Method:
- To begin, we will start by making the most important component, the cake. Place all of your dried fruit, including your cherries, into a large mixing bowl, then pour over your brandy and mix in the orange zest. You should then cover the mixture with clingfilm and leave it to soak for three days, stirring the mixture daily.
- Now that you have prepared your cake mixture, grease and line a 23cm / 9in deep, round tin with a double layer of greased greaseproof paper. Preheat your oven to 140℃ / 120℃ / Gas 1.
- Find yourself a very large bowl and measure the eggs, sugar, butter, treacle and almonds into it and beat well (preferably with an electric free-standing mixer). Add your flour and ground spice to the mixture and mix it thoroughly until completely blended. Then you should stir in the soaked fruit and spoon the completed mixture into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.
- Bake your cake in the centre of your pre-heated oven for approximately 4 – 4 ½ hours, or until your cake feels firm to the touch and is a rich golden brown (think of The Stranglers song). After two hours, check your cake and if it is a perfect colour, cover it with foil. When you place a skewer through the centre of your cake, it should come out clean. Then leave your cake to cool in the tin.
- When your cake is cool, pierce it at intervals with a fine skewer and complete my favourite process. When your cake is completely cold, wrap it in a double layer of greaseproof paper and again in foil and store in a cool place for as long as possible before serving, feeding it at intervals with more brandy. (Don’t remove the lining paper when storing as this will be what helps to keep the cake moist.)
- You should only begin the covering process of the cake a week before you intend on serving it.
- To cover your cake, you should stand it upside down, flat side uppermost, on a cake board which should be 5cm / 2in larger than the size of your cake.
- Brush the top and sides of your cake with the warm apricot jam.
- Give a nice liberal dusting of icing sugar over your work surface, and roll out your marzipan to about 5cm / 2in larger than the surface of the cake. Keep moving your marzipan as you roll and check that it is not sticking to the work surface. If necessary, you can dust your work surface with more icing sugar.
- Using a rolling pin, gently lift your marzipan over the cake. Gently level and smooth the top of the paste with the rolling pin and ease the marzipan down the sides of the cake, smoothing it out at the same time. If you have executed this step perfectly, you should be able to cover the cake with no excess marzipan to trim, but if necessary, neatly trim excess marzipan from the base of the cake using a small sharp knife. Cover the cake loosely with baking parchment and leave it for a few days to dry out before adding the royal icing.
- We’re finally approaching the final process of the cake which is the royal icing. To make the royal icing, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until they become nice and frothy. Then mix in the sifted icing sugar a tablespoon at a time. You can mix the egg whites and icing sugar together using a hand-held electric whisk, but you should keep the speed on a low setting.
- Once the egg whites and icing sugar have been mixed together, stir in your lemon juice and glycerine and beat the icing until it is very stiff and white and stands up in peaks.
- Cover the surface of the icing tightly with clingfilm and keep it in a cool place until needed.
- When you come to ice the cake, place all the icing onto the top of the cake and spread evenly over the top and sides of the cake with a palette knife. For a snow-peak effect to match the holiday season, use a smaller palette knife to rough up the icing.
- Leave the cake loosely covered overnight for the icing to harden a little, then wrap or store in an airtight container in a cool place until needed.
- The final step is not a Mary Berry instruction, but one I imagine she would approve of. Pour yourself a big drink, grab a mince pie and get cosy on the sofa after that long process – you deserve it.