Cook, writer and food stylist, Debbie's reputation for foolproof, delicious recipes is second to none. She is renowned for her dedication to seasonal home cooking and her love of all things rustic and authentic. Simplicity over cheffy is her motto!
See more of Debbie Major’s recipes
Debbie Major
Cook, writer and food stylist, Debbie's reputation for foolproof, delicious recipes is second to none. She is renowned for her dedication to seasonal home cooking and her love of all things rustic and authentic. Simplicity over cheffy is her motto!
See more of Debbie Major’s recipes
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Ingredients
For day 1
250g raisins
250g currants
100g dried cranberries
100g dried cherries
100g chopped mixed peel
100ml orange-flavoured liqueur, such as Cointreau, plus 3 tbsp for feeding
grated zest and juice of 4 clementines (about 8 tbsp)
For day 2
200g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), chopped
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp ground mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
200g soft salted butter
200g dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
3 large eggs
1 tbsp fine-cut marmalade
100g ground almonds
100g blanched hazelnuts, roasted and coarsely chopped
50g blanched almonds, roasted and coarsely chopped
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Step by step
Get ahead
Make up to 3 months ahead, keep well-wrapped. Once decorated, store in an airtight container.
The day before baking the cake, put the dried fruits, chopped mixed peel, orange liqueur and clementine zest and juice into a large saucepan. Bring up to the boil, turning the fruits over as you do so, then cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Tip into a mixing bowl, cover and leave to soak overnight.
The next day, preheat the oven to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas 2. Move one of the shelves so that it is towards the bottom of the oven. Grease and line the base and sides of a deep 20cm round cake tin with baking paper. Tie a thick, wide strip of folded newspaper or brown paper around the outside of the tin and lay another folded newspaper on a baking sheet and put the cake tin on top (this stops the outside of the cake cooking too quickly).
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Leave to cool.
Sift the flour and spices together into a bowl. Whisk the butter in another large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer until it is creamy, then add the muscovado sugar and vanilla and beat well for 5 minutes until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoonful of the flour mixture with the second and third egg to help stop the mixture from curdling.
Fold in the remaining flour mixture followed by the melted chocolate, soaked fruits and any soaking liquid, the marmalade, ground almonds and chopped nuts. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level with a spoon. Push the handle of a wooden spoon halfway down into the mixture at intervals all over the cake – this helps keep the top flat.
Tear off a double thickness sheet of baking paper, large enough to cover the top of the tin generously, and cut a hole in the centre, about the size of a 10p coin. Lay on top of the cake tin, transfer to the oven, and bake for 2¾- 3 hours or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes away clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.
Remove the cake from the tin and discard the lining paper. Wrap in clean baking paper then foil, flat base-side up, and store in a cool, dark place. The next day, unwrap the cake and spike the base with a skewer. Drizzle over 1 tablespoon of the remaining orange liqueur and re-wrap. Repeat the feeding process twice more as the cake matures, leaving at least a week to dry out before decorating so that the icing won’t discolour.
Tip
DIFFERENT SHAPES AND SIZES: You can also bake this in a deep 23cm round tin, or a 20cm square tin. Both will take 21⁄4-23⁄4 hours to bake.
WANT A SMALLER CAKE? Halve the quantities and bake in a deep 18cm round tin, for 11⁄2-13⁄4 hours.
MAKE IT GF Use GF self-raising flour and add 1⁄2 tsp xanthan gum. The GF flour will need more liquid, so add the juice of 2 extra clementines (or 1 orange) when making the cake batter.
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Christmas cakes are also commonly made with pudding while a fruit cake uses butter, however there are Christmas cake recipes that do contain butter. The traditional Scottish Christmas cake, also known as the Whisky Dundee, is very popular. It is a light crumbly cake with currants, raisins, cherries and Scotch whisky.
If you want to keep the cake for a very long time, it is helpful to reinvigorate the cheesecloth with a new infusion of rum, juice or brandy every month, taking care to rewrap the cake as outlined above. A good quality apple left in the container with a stored fruit cake helps to keep the moisture in the cake.
What is the best alcohol to put in a Christmas cake? A reasonably strong spirit (such as whisky, rum or brandy) with a warm, fiery flavour or a sweet liqueur (such as cherry brandy or amaretto – NOT a cream liqueur) will compliment the flavour of the cake, and help to preserve the cake, so it will keep for longer.
What alcohol should you use? Strong, flavourful spirits with a high ABV are ideal for feeding fruitcakes. You can use rum, brandy or whisky for spice, or if you like citrus flavours, try an orange liqueur. Cherry brandy and amaretto will also work well if you prefer these.
Nigella suggests bourbon or brandy but you can use many other alternative alcohols. Bourbon is a type of whiskey, so the Scotch whisky may be the best alternative. However, the ginger wine could also be used as there is ground ginger in the cake.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these seemingly indestructible pastries typically stay fresh for six months in the pantry and up to a year when refrigerated. But anecdotally we know that they can last for decades; some of the oldest have been preserved for more than a century.
Other good choices of booze include brandy, rum, or whiskey. Feel free to use one or a mix of these to best complement your fruitcake. Once you've chosen the liquor, bake the cake, poke holes throughout the whole thing, and pour a few tablespoons of the alcohol over it. Or, you can brush the cake with the alcohol.
The best way to avoid sinking fruit is to toss the fruit in a couple of tablespoons of the flour (just use some from the measured amount for the recipe) to coat it lightly. Once added to the cake mixture the flour coating will thicken the batter immediately surrounding the fruit and help suspend the fruit.
If your batter is slack or runny, it will be particularly susceptible to sinking ingredients. That's one reason you may have experienced this issue with some recipes but not with others. The fruit is covered in a syrup (such as glace cherries). The syrup makes the fruit heavy and slippery.
The hole in the center is usually filled with a variety of dried fruits and nuts. In Portugal, it is a popular tradition to include a fava bean in the cake. Whoever finds the fava bean in their slice is considered to have good luck for the coming year.
Plain flour is fine as the cake isn't going to significantly rise. You are looking to achieve a dense, moist texture that is evenly distributed with flavoursome vine fruits. Gluten free alternatives: opt for a combination of flours.
Might just give one last go this week then leave it til ready to ice it. I overfed mine last year. It tasted fine (I love a boozy cake!) but it was very very soggy.
The modern fruitcake was created as a way to deal with the abundance of sugar-laced fruit and, by the early 19th century, the typical recipe was full of citrus peel, pineapples, plums, dates, pears, and cherries.by the late 1800s, the fruitcake was gifted in decorative tins, becoming a holiday staple with Christmas and ...
Both desserts are steeped in lore and tradition, and both only appear one time of year. Both are also based on dried fruit and candied citrus peel, but that's where the similarities end. But there's no need to choose one or the other – make both (I do!).
A Christmas cake is a heavy cake containing much dried fruit and usually having a covering of icing. It is made to be eaten at Christmas. It can also be called a fruitcake.
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Prep time: 40 mins 
