Nigella's Quick Christmas Cake with Chocolate & Tia Maria.

Quick, Simple & Tasty - Try it! Recipe Here...

350g - Chopped Dried Soft Prunes
250g - Raisins
25g - Currants
175ml - Honey
125ml - Tia Maria or similar favourite
2 Oranges - Zest & Juiced (I use less, 2 can make it soggy & too orangey)
1 teaspoon - Mixed Spice
2 tablespoons - Good Quality Cocoa
175g - Softened Unsalted Butter
175g - Dark Muscovado Sugar
3 - Free-Range Eggs, Beaten
150g - Plain flour
75g - Ground Almonds
1/2 teaspoon - Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon - Baking Soda

Try a square tin, it's easier to cut the slices.

300 Degrees F/ 150 Degrees C for around 2 hours.

You can slightly alter the flavour elements of this recipe, it's quite forgiving, just keep the quantities about the same to avoid issues.

To protect the top of the cake from burning even further, you can insert a disk of greaseproof paper in the top, make it a little larger than the tin, snip it a cm or so around the edges, and it will happily hover above the cake - as long as your oven is not too hot and you don't forget the cake's in the oven, this shouldn't be necessary.

Heat the mixture until it reaches a very gentle boil (remember lots of delicate ingredients in there), stirring the mixture as the butter melts. Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes; remove the saucepan from the heat and leave to stand for 30 minutes.

After around 30 minutes, the mixture will have cooled a little, now add the eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and baking soda, mix well with a wooden spoon or spatula until the ingredients have combined.

Then carefully pour the fruitcake mixture into the lined cake tin. Transfer the cake tin to the oven and bake for around 2 hours, or until the top of the cake is firm. If you insert a sharp knife into the middle of the cake whilst it's warm, depending on how wet you made the mixture, with more or less orange juice, the knife will not come away clean like usual; so it does require some nerve the first time you make it to say, 'Yes, it's cooked' ;-)

I don't like Nigella's decoration, you could try this...

Mix a super thick white/ royal icing, so that it doesn't want to run at all, thickly paste all over the top then slightly scrape it down the sides, not all the way, and if you get it right it looks a little like icicles on the side of a house. Then roll out some marzipan, cut out small & large stars, paint them gold if you like (cake shop item), and attach as you like, bending over the edge of the cake too. It gives you the classic taste, but looks really fun & modern.

Done!!!

I've never eaten classic English Christmas cake, it looks wonderful, especially when heavily decorated, but the flavours are just too strong & almost bitter (depending on the recipe) I much prefer a sweeter treat.

I've always felt that I've been missing out though, it does look so festive, then along comes Ms Lawson, with her modern, magical wand, and hey presto, I can eat Christmas cake ;-) Some people call this her chocolate Christmas cake, which it isn't really, the classic recipe doesn't have that much chocolate, but is lovely & subtle, you could add more, but be careful; I do add more Tia Maria, and let the fruit steep at least over night.

I've served this at a couple of afternoon Christmas parties, with all ages in attendance, and it went down a treat, with almost nothing left at the end! The only difference is that I decorate it completely differently. Nigella's is totally impractical, the gold balls & coffee beans just go all over the place, and actually don't look that good; also a lot of people don't like glitter on food, regardless of whether it's edible or not.

Enjoy!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Nigella Lawson
• Delia Smith
• Fanny Cradock
• Mary Berry
• Martha Stewart
• Christmas cake
• Tia
• Maria
• Alternative recipe
• modern christmas
• yuletide
• yule log
• BBC2 BBC
• Baking
• Cake decoration chocolate
• Christmas recipes

[natachag77]

I love this recipe but if you live in a tropical country, you will always have to add more baking powder and baking soda, about the double of the original amount. Otherwise, your cake won't be so airy and tall. It's always a good idea to feed the cake with rhum, brandy or any spiritous drink you like, so that it tastes much better, much longer.

[chillmax]

@natachag77 - Glad you liked it, and some good tips. This cake is so dense, I'm not sure extra baking powder or soda will have any effect, but it couldn't hurt I suppose. However due to the high moisture content of the final cake, feeding it could almost make it wet; so if you do it at all, just do it once and not too much, trust me ;-)

[SuperHotrats]

what size is the cake tin ??

[chillmax]

@SuperHotrats - As I've mentioned before, this recipe is very forgiving, so whatever you have should do, just adjust cooking times if it's a deeper or more shallow mix. The tin I use is around an 8" and I don't have any issues, also it's square which I find very helpful for cutting small slices which people seem to like at Christmas parties.

[MegaNickAngel]

@chillmax Thanks a lot i'm gonna try it as soon as i can! :)

[chillmax]

@MegaNickAngel - Hi There, by shorter, I presume you mean generally smaller. Well, it might be an issue, in that the smaller it is the more difficult it will be to cook the middle properly. If you do use a smaller tin, make sure you protect the top of the cake, so that you can cook it a little longer, but prevent the top from burning.

[bordertown]

It's not important but I wonder what brand of honey she used here.

[natachag77]

@chillmax

Although I already had a great recipe from a lovely Colombian lady, I use this boiling method which is the best option 4 busy people who like to do things right. I made my cakes yesterday, I divided the batter in smaller tins for a shorter baking time, Sure, I fed them once with a good rhum (I don't like them mushy either) and the result was superb. What I like the most are all those plump fruits that chatched all the magic of the previous spiritous bath. Merry Xmas! :-))

[zigzagzig40]

Yet again Nigella you have saved my expat Christmas here in the mountains of Northern Spain. I left it too late late to soak my fruits this year, and as it is becoming almost impossible to concede the ingredients without returning back to the fair Isle I decided to 'look you up'

Thankyou and Merry Christmas from an ex-Lutterworth boy.