Rich Christmas Fruitcake

“Fantastic Christmas Cake! Even those who said “I don’t really like fruitcakeâ€? gobbled it up. I followed Heather’s directions for preparing the tin for baking and also took her suggestion of adding the mixed peel. I made this mid-November and fed it twice a week for the first couple of weeks but had to scale back because I was afraid it might fall apart or be more pudding-like. Even with not feeding it much the last few weeks, it was incredibly moist. I’m not a big fan of frosting, so I left it plain. Everyone agreed that it was fantastic un-frosted as you could really taste the fruit and spices. Well worth the wait!”

“This cake is absolutley fabulous, I use it to make wedding cakes and every one says how lovely it is.”

“Made this last Christmas and it was a lovely cake. It was eaten in two weeks whereas the cake I used to make took about a month to be finished. Three people have asked me for the recipe including my mother who has used the same recipe for the last 30 odd years!Rather than soak the fruit for 12 hours, I soaked it for 5 days topping up the rum and schnapps every day, it saved me having to feed the cake after it was made. Well I couldn’t really because due to work commitments I didn’t make the cake until the 22nd and iced it on the 24th!!!All I can say…it’s a lovely cake!”

“This turned out to be a very nice, moist, well-flavoured christmas cake. It was much more moist than any storebought fruit cake I’ve had. I only fed the cake once a week for 4 weeks, wrapping it tightly in many layers of plastic wrap inbetween the feedings. I think if I had fed it any more than that, it would have been too moist and would have fallen apart or been more of a christmas pudding instead of a cake. In baking the cake, the only substitute I did was using italian candied mixed peel for the 50g candied fruit as I feel it’s traditional to have some candied peel in a christmas cake. The tin preparation could be better explained. Traditionally, you double line the tin by folding over a long strip of greaseproof paper (it should be about 2 inches taller than your tin at least), fold about an inch at the bottom of the strip and cut slits up to the fold mark. Grease the cake tin and mold the paper to the sides of the pan (the slits in the paper help this), then cut out two circles of paper to line the bottom. Fold up some newspaper into a strip about another inch higher than your inner greaseproof paper lining and tie this around the outside of the tin. Place the tin on some sheets of newspaper as well. I also followed the instructions and did a folded over piece of greaseproof paper with a small (about one inch diameter) hold in it on top. All the above protective padding around the cake is to help prevent the fruit on the outside of the cake from burning. The oven tempeture is so low that you needn’t worry about it catching fire. I then put the newspaper under the tin (and the tin as well) on a baking tray, filled the tin and smoothed out the top with wetted hands. Do not open the oven for at least 4 hours. I have a convection oven and the cake was done at 4 hours. Test the cake with a wooden toothpick or skewer of some kind but be aware that it could come out slightly sticky as it hits a lot of fruits as well. Leave to cool in the tin, on a rack. This can take several hours. Remove the cake from the tin when it’s completely cold, then feed as above. “