Organic Christmas Deliciousness baked in your Old Dutch. By boiling the fruit in ginger beer this recipe can be ready to eat on the day you start making it. Or you can store it and feed it booze weekly for up to two months before cutting.
Super moist and subtly dense with a soft crumb this spiced, fruity, fragrant cake is simply iced with an orange glaze that hardens to a crunchy sweet finish. Topped with extra fruit and nuts and all wrapped up in ribbons, it’s your Christmas table show stopper.
We prefer a more fruity over nutty Christmas cake but it’s up to you what ratio of fruit and nuts you use. There was discussion in our house that brazil nuts and maybe even walnuts IN the cake would have been a wonderful addition. So make this cake your own and fill your home with the smell of Christmas baking.
INGREDIENTS
THE CAKE
1.3 kg fruit and nuts
We used:
300 g Ceres raisins
250 g Ceres sultanas
140 g Ceres cranberries
125 g Ceres crystallised ginger
150 g Ceres dried tart cherries
250 g Ceres raw whole almonds
85 g mixed peel
2 ¼ c Hakanoa ginger beer
1 ¼ c Ceres raw sugar
3 Tbsp golden syrup
375 g butter
Zest 2 lemon and 1 orange
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp nutmeg powder
3 Tbsp vanilla essence
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Large pinch salt
6 free range eggs lightly whisked
3 ½ c ceres stone ground white flour, sifted
½ c rum, brandy, whisky whatever your choice (optional)
THE ICING
1 ½ c Ceres organic icing sugar
1 egg white
1 Tbsp mandarin or orange zest
Juice of 1 mandarin
THE NUTTY FRUITY TOPPING
Ceres Brazil nuts, chopped in large chunks
Ceres Apricots, sliced finely
Ceres Crystalized ginger, chopped into quarters
Freeze-dried mandarin segments
METHOD
Boil up the fruit, nuts, ginger beer, sugar, golden syrup and butter in your Old Dutch for 10 minutes.
Transfer from Old Dutch to a large mixing bowl and leave to cool. Clean your Old Dutch.
Heat oven to 130°C fan bake.
Line your cooled Old Dutch with a double layer of baking paper, making sure it sits 1 inch above the top of the pan.
Stir the zest, spices, vanilla essence, baking powder, soda and salt into the cooled fruit mixture and gently mix to combine. Add the eggs and mix well then fold in the flour.
Pour the cake batter into your prepared Old Dutch and bake for 3 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the oven.
If you want to add booze to your cake now is the time to start doing that. On removal, hot from the oven, and using a wooden skewer, poke holes in the top of the cake. Lots of them! Count to 100.
Brush half a cup of brandy or rum or whatever you fancy over the cake and let it cool down in the oven.
If you are making this cake in advance and want to feed it with booze every week until Christmas wrap the cooled cake tightly with tin foil and store it in a dark cool place. Remove the tinfoil every week and brush with a ¼ c of booze. Re-wrap and repeat until it’s time to ice.
If you are wanting to skip the booze part and get right to the decorating and eating read on.
To make the icing whisk all icing ingredients together. Take a look at the video to see the consistency required. The icing will set quite quickly so make sure you have all your toppings ready.
Remove the baking paper from the cake and place it on your serving platter (We used the Old Dutch lid turned upside down.)
Pour the icing into the middle of the top of the cake and then let it drip down the sides. Let it set just a little bit before arranging the apricots, ginger and brazil nuts on top. Finish with a generous sprinkling of crushed freeze-dried mandarin segments.
Wipe up any extra icing dribbles then finish your masterpiece with a few ribbons as per the photos.
Serve with a steaming hot cuppa, a wee dram or gallons of Hakanoa Ginger Beer.
Happy Christmas all! Love us.
