Very easy Christmas cake

If you’ve never made a Christmas cake before, you need to try this one.  Its very moist and has only four ingredients.   You can use prepacked fruit mix (sultanas, currants, cherries etc) or mix your own, and any carton of orange juice from the supermarket.  The fiddliest bit is lining the baking tin but that’s important so the cake doesn’t burn during cooking.

Ingredients

1 kg dried fruit mix
2 cups orange juice
2 cups self-raising flour
2 teaspoons mixed spice

Method

1. Empty the packet of fruit mix into a large mixing bowl
2. Pour over the orange juice and leave to soak overnight or for at least 3 hours. This allows the juice to soak into and soften the fruit
3. Prepare a 22cm square or round cake tin. Grease the base and sides and line with the whole tin with cake baking or greaseproof paper
4. Cut the paper to fit the base and then cut strips to line the sides of the tin. Brush the paper with a greased pastry brush or a knife that has been dipped in cooking oil.  Put prepared tin to one side until you are ready to mix the cake
5. Heat the oven to 170° C
6. Measure the flour and sift it into the bowl with the fruit and juice
7. Stir gently with a wooden spoon until the flour is mixed evenly through the fruit.
8. Spoon into the prepared baking tin and spread the mixture evenly. Make a slight hollow in the centre so that when the cake rises, it doesn’t peak and crack in the middle
9. Bake at 170° C for 2 hours. Check after 90 minutes that the top isn’t burning.  If the fruit is starting to look dark brown or even black, cover the top of the cake with a double sheet of greaseproof or baking paper
10. When cooked, leave the cake to cool in the tin before turning it out.

This makes a smallish cake that is about 5 cm high. 

You can eat it as is or ice it.  Traditional Christmas cake icing consists of an almond paste covered with a smooth white icing mixture.  Check out how to do it here.

If you like almonds, you can decorate your cake by placing almonds over the top of your cake before you cook it.  Then you have an attractive cake that doesn’t need to be iced.

Wedding cake

If you are planning to make your own wedding cake, you could use this recipe.  I suggest you double all the ingredients for a bigger cake in a 24 cm round tin.  You would need to bake the cake for 3 hours and check in the last hour of cooking so it doesn’t burn on the top.

You can get it professionally decorated or simply buy some ready-made decorations to place on top.