Traditional Christmas Cake Food

CHRISTMAS CAKE

Steps:

• In a medium bowl, combine cherries, citrus peel, raisins, currants, dates, and almonds. Stir in brandy; let stand 2 hours, or overnight. Dredge soaked fruit with 1/2 cup flour.
• Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C). Grease an 8x8x3 inch fruit cake pan, line with parchment paper, and grease again. In a small bowl, mix together 2 cups flour, baking soda, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.
• In a large bowl, cream butter until light. Gradually blend in brown sugar and eggs. Mix together molasses and apple juice. Beat into butter mixture alternately with flour mixture, making 4 dry and 3 liquid additions. Fold in floured fruit. Turn batter into prepared pan.
• Bake in preheated oven for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean. Remove from pan, and lift off paper. Cool cake completely, then wrap loosely in waxed paper. Store in an airtight container.

MARY BERRY'S CLASSIC CHRISTMAS CAKE

Steps:

• For the cake, place all the dried fruit, including the cherries, into a large mixing bowl, pour over the brandy and stir in the orange zest. Cover with clingfilm and leave to soak for three days, stirring daily.
• Grease and line a 23cm/9in deep, round tin with a double layer of greased greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 140C/120C Fan/Gas 1.
• Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and almonds into a very large bowl and beat well (preferably with an electric free-standing mixer). Add the flour and ground spice and mix thoroughly until blended. Stir in the soaked fruit. Spoon into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.
• Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for about 4-4½ hours, or until the cake feels firm to the touch and is a rich golden brown. Check after two hours, and if the cake is a perfect colour, cover with foil. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.
• When cool, pierce the cake at intervals with a fine skewer and feed with a little extra brandy. Wrap the completely cold cake in a double layer of greaseproof paper and again in foil and store in a cool place for up to three months, feeding at intervals with more brandy. (Don't remove the lining paper when storing as this helps to keep the cake moist.)
• The week before you want to serve, begin covering the cake.
• For the covering, stand the cake upside down, flat side uppermost, on a cake board which is 5cm/2in larger than the size of the cake.
• Brush the sides and the top of the cake with the warm apricot jam.
• Liberally dust a work surface with icing sugar and then roll out the marzipan to about 5cm/2in larger than the surface of the cake. Keep moving the marzipan as you roll, checking that it is not sticking to the work surface. Dust the work surface with more icing sugar as necessary.
• Carefully lift the marzipan over the cake using a rolling pin. Gently level and smooth the top of the paste with the rolling pin, then ease the marzipan down the sides of the cake, smoothing it at the same time. If you are careful, 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 with a small sharp knife. Cover the cake loosely with baking parchment and leave for a few days to dry out before adding the royal icing.
• For the royal icing, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until they become frothy. Mix in the sifted icing sugar a tablespoonful at a time. You can do this with a hand-held electric whisk, but keep the speed low.
• Stir in the 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 in a cool place until needed.
• To ice the cake, place all the icing onto the top of the cake. Spread evenly over the top and sides of the cake with a palette knife. For a snow-peak effect, 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.

COCONUT ANGEL FOOD CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees, with rack in the lower third of oven. Sift together flour and 3/4 cup sugar 4 times.
• Beat egg whites and warm water with a mixer on low speed until foamy, about 3 minutes. Add cream of tartar, vanilla, salt, and coconut extract. Raise speed to medium, and beat until soft peaks form, about 3 minutes. With machine running, add remaining 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. Raise speed to high, and beat until peaks are stiff and glossy, but not dry, about 2 minutes.
• Working in 3 batches, sift flour mixture over egg-white mixture, gently folding in each addition with a rubber spatula, being careful not to deflate egg whites.
• Slowly pour batter into a 10-inch angel food cake pan. Gently run a knife through center of batter to release any air bubbles, and smooth using an offset spatula. Bake until cake is golden brown and springs back when touched, 40 to 45 minutes.
• Invert pan onto a wire rack. Let cake cool in pan, about 1 hour. Carefully run a knife around sides of cake to loosen, and turn out onto a large plate or cake stand.
• Pour coconut glaze onto cake, and spread evenly using an offset spatula to cover completely. Gently press coconut onto cake. Let stand until set, about 1 hour. Garnish with lollipops.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CAKE

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas2. Grease a 20cm/8inch round or an 18cm/7inch square cake tin and line the bottom and sides with baking parchment.
• Sieve the flour, salt, mixed spice and cinnamon into a bowl.
• Cream the butter and the sugar in a large mixing bowl and then mix in the sugar, treacle, marmalade and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.
• Mix the eggs a little at a time into the mixture adding a tablespoon of flour mixture with the last amount.
• Fold in the remaining flour mixture until well mixed and then mix in the dried fruit, mixed peel, glace cherries and the almonds.
• Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and make a slight hollow in the centre.
• Bake in the oven for 3 hours and then test with a skewer. If not ready bake for up to another hour testing every 20 minutes until the skewer comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes.
• Turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool.
• Once cool, make a few holes in the cake with a skewer and pour over 3-4 tbspof brandy. Let the brandy soak into the cake.

GRANDMA'S BEST CHRISTMAS CAKE

Steps:

• Warm margarine to room temperature Cream the sugars and margarine until smooth and creamy. Add one egg at a time mixing one tablespoon of the flour between each egg (this prevents curdling).
• Blanche Almonds if necessary then add ALL the ingredients EXCEPT the remaining flour stirring well then add the remaining flour folding in well.
• Line an 8-9 inch metal cake tin with greaseproof paper place the mixture in making a bit of a dip in the middle, by doing this the cake will come out more even.
• Cook in a slow oven 150c for approx 3 hours check with a satay stick through the centre to see if its cooked then tip out onto a cake rack to cool.
• I usually cook this in the early afternoon and leave overnight to cool completely, just to make sure that there is no heat in the centre as once you wrap it up if there is, it will sweat and can make the cake go mouldy.
• Wrap in two layers of Foil and keep in a cupboard. at the start of December prick the top of the cake lightly and dribble over a tot of Brandy, reseal and turn over two weeks later.
• Mums idea:.
• Line the tin as usual but also wrap brown paper around the outside tying it tightly with some string leaving the level of the paper higher than the cake so if necessary you can put some paper over the top to stop it browning too much toward the end of cooking.
• Cook this cake late October or Early November.