Christmas Cake: Day 2

I made two Christmas Cakes!  They are soaking up whiskey and waiting for Christmas and, hopefully, not growing any pathogens. I'll post an updated picture when it comes time to pour a little more bourbon on them this weekend.  Every Sunday between now and Christmas they get a little drink!

Christmas Cake
Adapted from Felicity Cloake's Recipe

Takes 1 hour + 2 hours baking + weeks of waiting
Makes 1 cake

1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon butter, very soft or melted
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon muscovado or dark brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice (a suggestion: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon clove + 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; you can also use pumpkin pie spice if you have it)
1/4 cup ground almonds
zest of one lemon (an unwaxed one if possible)
1/4 cup blanched almonds
Boozy Fruits

Preheat oven to 280 degrees fahrenheit.

With two layers of parchment, line and butter an 8 inch cake tin, or what I like to use is a 1 1/2 quart Corning bakeware or similar casserole type dishes. Trim the excess parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking in each until fully incorporated. This will take some time, but when you are done, your batter will look very smooth and rich. Add boozy fruits and their juices, lemon zest and almonds, and stir until just combined.

In another bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, mixed spice, ground almonds and a pinch of salt. 

Fold flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined.

Pour into prepared cake tin and create a hollow with your spatula. This trick prevents a dome from forming on your cake!

Bake for one hour.  Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 30 more minutes. Check to see if it's done (an inserted fork comes out clean). If it's not, cover again, and bake in 10 minute intervals until cooked. Each cake took approximately an extra 40 minutes for a total baking time of 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Let cool completely. When cool, poke holes almost all the way through the cake.  Brush with whiskey.  Wrap in foil and keep in an airtight container. Brush with whiskey, around once a week until Christmas!

Stir it Up!: Christmas Cake, day 1

This is the second year that I am making a Christmas Cake.  Known to some as fruit cake, this is not at all one of those bizarrely dry cakes with bits of bright red and green candied something in them. This is a very moist, rich, boozy cake with lots of real fruit.  Just a tiny slice of cake is so good with a cup of tea around 4 pm, when it is starting to get dark, and you just aren't ready to have it be nighttime already. I love real fruitcake for not being too sweet, and being actually fruity, not in a bright, summery way, but in a serious, winter way. It's a very companionable cake, for the quiet, contemplative time of year.

It's also a party cake, though, because it really is full of booze!  If you're going to make it, use something that you like to drink. The alcohol helps preserve the cake and gives it flavor. 

I spent one fall in London (the first year of this blog), and the woman I was living with started making mincemeat for pies in November. I was very impressed, and couldn't imagine planning to cook that far ahead. Last year, I really wanted to make a christmas cake, but, poor planner that I am, I started the week before and I fed it a little whiskey every day leading up to its unveiling on Christmas Day. It was delicious.

This year, I am starting on "Stir Up Sunday".  Not at all sure that this is a real thing in Britain, but I like the idea of it a whole lot better than Black Friday which is a very real thing here in the US.  Stir Up Sunday apparently has its roots in the Church of England, which marks the last Sunday before Advent as a day to: 

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I guess Stir Up Sunday hasn't been an entirely religious event for awhile, because in 1849, an observer marked little boys changing these words to:

Stir up, we beseech thee, 

The pudding in the pot: 

And when we get home, 

We'll eat it all hot. 

Phiz (Hablot K. Brown), "Paul Goes Home for the Holidays"
from Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son (1848–9)
image from Victorian Web.

In addition to its religious meanings, Stir Up Sunday now seems to be a day to make mincemeat for Christmas pies, to start Christmas puddings, and to start a Christmas Cake. We may not have a Christmas tree, but we have a little Christmas Cake starting in our house!  My stirring up will be to write some blog posts between now and the end of the year!  I'll be blogging the progress of the Christmas Cake, and maybe you want to start one too. First steps: the fruit and the bourbon.

Christmas Cake--Step 1: Boozy fruit

adapted from Felicity Cloake's recipe

1 cup dried currants
1 cup sultanas (golden raisins, preferably the big ones)
1/2 cup (about 6) dried smyrna figs, chopped
1/2 cup dried plump cherries (not the super shriveled ones)
1/2 cup candied orange peel or mixed peel, chopped
1 Tablespoon candied ginger, chopped fine
1/2 cup whiskey or bourbon 
a splash, Grand Marnier, if you have it around

Stir it up! Let sit for one day, until you are ready to bake the cake.