In which I make a Christmas cake
I made the Christmas cake on Tuesday. It's about a fortnight earlier than previous years but I'm going to be making a Christmas pudding this year as well. I'll be making that around Stir-up Sunday which is the 21st November so I wanted a week or two in between as they're pretty big bakes.
I have to make a gluten-free Christmas cake and for the past few years, I've been using this recipe from Doves Farm. I use their flour so it made sense to use their recipe too! They've actually changed the recipe online since I printed out my copy in 2017 but I've carried on using the old one as it works fine. I know some people have always said how impressed they are that I'm able to make a Christmas cake, but it's really not that difficult. Look, I'll show you.
1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas mark 2. Line a 20cm/8" deep round cake tin with parchment paper.
My mum helped with this bit while I was making the cake itself.
2. Weigh the fruit, cherries, peel, and nuts into a bowl. Add the flour, stir to mix, and set aside.
I managed to buy a bag of luxury dried fruit which contained the usual raisins, sultanas, currants and mixed peel as well as cranberries and apricots. It was already infused with brandy otherwise I would have had to soak it in whisky in advance. Even so I put the fruit into the mixing bowl, poured over some cranberry juice and left it overnight so that the fruit would soak up the juice and make the cake more flavourful and moist. This was the fruit the following morning. It's not plumped up quite as much as I'd have liked but that's okay.
3. Put the butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat together until light and fluffy.
The recipe says to use soft brown sugar but that makes the finished cake quite pale and a Christmas cake is supposed to be fairly dark. I used molasses sugar instead which gives it a much richer colour and more flavour. The main downside is that it tends to be in a solid block so it's not as easy to beat as the soft brown sugar would be.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, ensuring each is well incorporated before adding the next.
This is the worrying bit because adding eggs into the butter and sugar mix makes it curdle. Mine didn't go until the last egg went in. That's fine, it'll come together once the flour goes in.
5. Add the mixed spice, the lemon rind, and the juice to the bowl and mix well.
I forgot to buy a lemon so I had to forego the lemon zest and just used a bottle of lemon juice instead. I also added a good spoonful of treacle which helps to make the cake darker. Licking the treacle spoon afterwards is optional. 😉
This is the mix once all the lemon juice, spices, and treacle has been mixed in. It has really curdled quite a bit more now thanks to the lemon juice. Ignore the mug of hot Vimto in the background, baking is thirsty work! ☕
6. Stir in the fruit, nuts, and flour.
There we go, all mixed in. It's still slightly curdled, I think that's because the eggs were quite large and it possibly could have done with a bit more flour to balance that out. One tip I've learned from baking with gluten-free flour is to leave the mix for a few minutes before putting it in the tin. Gluten-free flour takes longer to absorb liquid than wheat flour does so leaving it for a bit helps it to absorb more and stops the cake being so dry. I used this time to finish my Vimto 😁
7. Tip the mixture into the prepared tin, pushing it down, and smoothing the top.
This is a new-ish tin, it's only the second year I've used it and it weighs a bloody ton. The mixture fills it up quite a decent amount though so the cake should be a good size.
One thing the recipe doesn't mention is to wrap the tin in brown paper. This helps the cake to cook more evenly, otherwise the outside of the cake will cook quicker than the middle and end up overcooked. Make sure the paper is taller than the cake tin as this will help protect the top of the cake from burning. 🤓
8. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 2-2½ hours.
Ta-dah, one cooked cake! It took 2 hours exactly, but I turned the oven off and left the cake in there to finish off. It took just over an hour from starting off to getting it in the oven, so say about 3½ hours in total. It is a long bake, and I think that possibly puts people off, but once the cake's in the oven, the hard work is done! 🤔
9. Allow to cool in the tin for 12 hours.
There we go, all done and doesn't it look good? I'll leave the paper on to stop it from drying out and it's in an airtight tin as well. I'll feed it every so often over the next 6 weeks or so which will also help to keep it moist. About two weeks before Christmas, it will get covered in marzipan. A few days after that, it will be covered with royal icing (if I can get royal icing sugar this year!), and decorated. And finally eaten! 😋
I have to make a gluten-free Christmas cake and for the past few years, I've been using this recipe from Doves Farm. I use their flour so it made sense to use their recipe too! They've actually changed the recipe online since I printed out my copy in 2017 but I've carried on using the old one as it works fine. I know some people have always said how impressed they are that I'm able to make a Christmas cake, but it's really not that difficult. Look, I'll show you.
1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas mark 2. Line a 20cm/8" deep round cake tin with parchment paper.
My mum helped with this bit while I was making the cake itself.
2. Weigh the fruit, cherries, peel, and nuts into a bowl. Add the flour, stir to mix, and set aside.
I managed to buy a bag of luxury dried fruit which contained the usual raisins, sultanas, currants and mixed peel as well as cranberries and apricots. It was already infused with brandy otherwise I would have had to soak it in whisky in advance. Even so I put the fruit into the mixing bowl, poured over some cranberry juice and left it overnight so that the fruit would soak up the juice and make the cake more flavourful and moist. This was the fruit the following morning. It's not plumped up quite as much as I'd have liked but that's okay.
3. Put the butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat together until light and fluffy.
The recipe says to use soft brown sugar but that makes the finished cake quite pale and a Christmas cake is supposed to be fairly dark. I used molasses sugar instead which gives it a much richer colour and more flavour. The main downside is that it tends to be in a solid block so it's not as easy to beat as the soft brown sugar would be.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, ensuring each is well incorporated before adding the next.
This is the worrying bit because adding eggs into the butter and sugar mix makes it curdle. Mine didn't go until the last egg went in. That's fine, it'll come together once the flour goes in.
5. Add the mixed spice, the lemon rind, and the juice to the bowl and mix well.
I forgot to buy a lemon so I had to forego the lemon zest and just used a bottle of lemon juice instead. I also added a good spoonful of treacle which helps to make the cake darker. Licking the treacle spoon afterwards is optional. 😉
This is the mix once all the lemon juice, spices, and treacle has been mixed in. It has really curdled quite a bit more now thanks to the lemon juice. Ignore the mug of hot Vimto in the background, baking is thirsty work! ☕
6. Stir in the fruit, nuts, and flour.
There we go, all mixed in. It's still slightly curdled, I think that's because the eggs were quite large and it possibly could have done with a bit more flour to balance that out. One tip I've learned from baking with gluten-free flour is to leave the mix for a few minutes before putting it in the tin. Gluten-free flour takes longer to absorb liquid than wheat flour does so leaving it for a bit helps it to absorb more and stops the cake being so dry. I used this time to finish my Vimto 😁
7. Tip the mixture into the prepared tin, pushing it down, and smoothing the top.
This is a new-ish tin, it's only the second year I've used it and it weighs a bloody ton. The mixture fills it up quite a decent amount though so the cake should be a good size.
One thing the recipe doesn't mention is to wrap the tin in brown paper. This helps the cake to cook more evenly, otherwise the outside of the cake will cook quicker than the middle and end up overcooked. Make sure the paper is taller than the cake tin as this will help protect the top of the cake from burning. 🤓
8. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 2-2½ hours.
Ta-dah, one cooked cake! It took 2 hours exactly, but I turned the oven off and left the cake in there to finish off. It took just over an hour from starting off to getting it in the oven, so say about 3½ hours in total. It is a long bake, and I think that possibly puts people off, but once the cake's in the oven, the hard work is done! 🤔
9. Allow to cool in the tin for 12 hours.
There we go, all done and doesn't it look good? I'll leave the paper on to stop it from drying out and it's in an airtight tin as well. I'll feed it every so often over the next 6 weeks or so which will also help to keep it moist. About two weeks before Christmas, it will get covered in marzipan. A few days after that, it will be covered with royal icing (if I can get royal icing sugar this year!), and decorated. And finally eaten! 😋