Easy British Christmas Cake

One of the staple bakes of the holiday season in my house is the traditional British Christmas cake. My easy Christmas cake recipe is a bourbon soaked fruit cake adapted from the Make and Mature Christmas Cake from BBC Good Food.

Jump to:

• What is British Christmas Cake?
• Equipment Notes
• Ingredients Notes
• How to Make British Christmas Cake
• Tips Rehydrating Dried Fruit for Fruit Cake
• Expert Tips
• Substitutions and Variations
• Ingredients Notes for Traditional Decoration
• Assembling Christmas Cake Before Serving
• Tips for Decoration
• Storage Advice
• FAQs
• More traditional Festive Recipes:
• Easy British Christmas Cake

What is British Christmas Cake?

So, if you're not in the UK, you might not be familiar with Christmas Cake. Or, you might think that a Christmas cake is more of a theme than a specific thing. But, the traditional British Christmas Cake isn't just about a festively decorated bake.

A classic Christmas Cake is a heavy fruit cake, usually made well in advance and fed with liqueur such as rum or brandy. The booze packs a bit of a punch, moistens the cake and helps the cake mature over weeks or even months.

Prior to serving, the cake is usually covered in a layer of marzipan or almond paste and then a layer of white fondant or sugar paste frosting. This thick frosting allows for decoration and intricate designs or toppers are a tradition in many households.

Equipment Notes

To make this cake, I recommend the following equipment:

• Large saucepan - to soak your fruit, you'll need a large, deep saucepan. There's a lot of fruit, so something that comfortably fits all 7 cups of dried fruit with a bit of room for liquid and stirring without sloshing out.
• Large mixing bowl
• Microplane grater - for zesting your citrus.
• Citrus juicer - or you can just use your hands. I have a handy lemon juicer that was honestly a game changer for simplicity, but oranges will need something a bit bigger.
• Wooden spoon - for this cake, I'm a traditionalist and like to use a wooden spoon for stirring. You can absolutely use a rubber spatula instead, there's no real impact on the bake.
• 9" deep sided cake tin - I like using a springform pan, but a standard cake pan will also work. It should be deep sided to allow for your batter.
• Parchment paper - this cake cooks low and slow, with a ton of fruit dotted all over. Lining is essential for easy releasing the cake from the pan once baked. As a dense cake, it is prone to sticking if unlined.

Ingredients Notes

The ingredients for my Christmas fruit cake allow a fair bit of room for adaptation and preference.

• Mixed dried fruit and peel - I often just buy pre-mixed bags of dried fruit and candied peel in the supermarket, but you can make your own mix with raisins, sultanas, currants, craisins. Add in some candied citrus peel, some glacé cherries, chopped dried figs or even chopped dried tropical fruits. The mix can be entirely up to you!
• Brown sugar - packed light brown muscovado sugar.
• Unsalted butter
• Orange - both juice and zest
• Lemon - both juice and zest
• Rum - I like to use dark rum for the Christmas cake. You could also use bourbon, whisky or even brandy or sherry. The key is to have enough to use in the cake and more to feed the cake weekly once baked.
• Flour - plain or all purpose flour will work in this recipe.
• Ground almonds - you can use store bough almond flour or grind your own by blitzing shelled almonds in a food processor until finely ground.
• Spices - use a mix of ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground allspice and ground cloves. Alternatively, you can try experimenting with other spices or use similar pre-made mixes such as pumpkin spice mix or mixed spice.
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract

How to Make British Christmas Cake

To make this cake follows these steps!

Step 1: Begin by rehydrating the dried fruits. Place these in a large pan and add the butter, sugar, lemon juice and zest, orange juice and zest, and rum. Cook over a medium heat until the butter has melted and the mixture is boiling. Lower the temperature and simmer for about 5 minutes. Then tip the contents into a large mixing bowl and allow to cool for about 30 minutes.

Step 2: Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 300°F (150C/130C Fan) and line the bottom and sides of a deep sided 8" or 9" cake pan with a double layer of parchment paper.

Step 3: Once the fruit mixture has been allowed to cool, add the flour, ground almonds, spices, vanilla and eggs to the mixing bowl and stir thoroughly with a spatula or wooden spoon to combine. Take care to ensure there are no clumps of flour left unmixed.

Step 4: Pour this into the prepared cake pan and bake in the lower half of the oven for 2 hours until a skewer comes out clean.

Step 5: Remove from the oven and use a toothpick to make holes all over the top of the cake. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of rum over the top and brush so that this soaks into the holes.

Step 6: Allow the cake to cool in the pan, before removing and peeling away the parchment paper.

Step 7: Store the cake in an airtight container, wrapped in parchment and feed with 2 tablespoons of rum every week until about a week before you are intending to serve.

Tips Rehydrating Dried Fruit for Fruit Cake

The key to a good fruit cake is the soaked dried fruits. There are two ways you can accomplish this:

1. Soaking overnight
2. Stewing on the stovetop

My recipe explains the faster process of cooking the fruits in the liquids. This is an easy method of quickly rehydrating and infusing flavors into the fruits, by stewing these in a large saucepan.

If you're planning to soak the fruit overnight instead, simply place the fruits, juices, zest, sugar and rum in a large mixing bowl. Cover with cling film and allow to sit overnight.

Expert Tips

This is a pretty forgiving fruit cake, my top tips are:

• Line your cake pan. This will help the cake bake better and will make removal infinitely more straightforward. A double layer isn't strictly required - I've done this with just one layer before and it's been fine. But, the double layer will better protect the sides from catching. Use a bit of butter to help stick the parchment to the base and sides of the pan.
• Don't skip the cooling time if you've stewed your fruit. Cooling it gives the fruit time to plump up, softening and absorbing the liquid. But more importantly, you don't want to add eggs to hot liquid - you'll risk scrambling them!
• If you notice the cake starting to brown too quickly or catch at the edges, cover with aluminum foil to help avoid burning.

Substitutions and Variations

Fruit cakes like my easy make ahead British Christmas Cake are super forgiving and allow for a lot of versatility. Some of the simplest substitutions you can make:

• Change the fruit mixture - you can mix and match with just about any dried fruit here. I've even made the cake with dried mango or prunes. The key is to use fruits that can be softened or rehydrated. Also any large pieces will need to be chopped up, to about the size of a raisin. Do keep in mind that different dried fruits will bring different flavors.
• Add chopped nuts - you can add some chopped walnuts or slivered almonds to this cake. Personally I'm not a huge fan as it adds a crunch to the texture, but some people love it! It's a personal choice. Adding about half a cup will mix in without impacting the baking.
• Different liquors - I like to use bourbon in my Christmas cake. This is the most unconventional part, if I'm honest. Brandy or rum are probably more common in the UK for feeding the fruit cake. You can mix, match and change the liquors to suit your tastes and preferences. I would recommend sticking to one throughout the feeding/soaking process (after the cake is baked) for a more consistent flavor.
• Alcohol free - if you would prefer to leave the booze out entirely, that is also an option here! You can opt for a completely alcohol free Christmas cake by substituting more orange juice in the batter and then feeding the cake using orange juice or a sugar syrup. Or, you can use some booze in the batter, which will mostly bake off in the oven, and still feed the cake with orange juice or sugar syrup once baked.

Ingredients Notes for Traditional Decoration

The cake itself is only part of the traditional Christmas cake process in Britain. For a classic Christmas cake, you'll also need to frost it!

The standard frosting is a layer of marzipan followed by a layer of fondant. These stuck to the cake and each other using a layer of marmalade or apricot jam as glue.

You'll need:

• Marzipan - or almond paste. It is possible to make this yourself at home, using almond flour and egg white, but it is also available in stores as a log that is ready to shape or roll out. Marzipan in the UK comes in two colors: natural/white or golden/yellow. The flavor is the same. Personally I like the yellow one for Christmas cake to contrast the white fondant.
• Fondant - or sugar paste. Again, this is technically something you can make yourself or find pre-packaged in supermarkets. If it isn't readily available in your area, specialty stores or searching online should provide ample resources for a rollable fondant.
• Powdered sugar - or icing sugar. This will be used for dusting work tops when rolling out your marzipan or fondant. It acts in the same way as flour would for cookie doughs. You'll want to sift the powdered sugar onto the counter to avoid lumps, which will be picked up by the frostings and may leave indentations.
• Jam - a rindless marmalade or apricot jam without too many bits is perfect here. You'll be heating it so that it melts down and the fewer bits, the better for spreading.

Assembling Christmas Cake Before Serving

After a few weeks of feeding your Christmas cake, it's time to assemble!

Step 1: First, heat the jam until it is loose.

Step 2: Then, roll out your marzipan on a surface dusted with powdered sugar. You'll need to roll out to a large circle wide enough to go over the whole cake - top and sides.

Step 3: Brush the top and sides of your cake with the jam so that it is lightly sticky. Then place the marzipan gently on top. Carefully pat it into place around the sides of the cake, aiming for it to sit snuggly around, as smooth as possible without air bubbles. Trim any excess.

Step 4: Next roll out the fondant to a similar size as the marzipan, also on a powdered sugar dusted work surface.

Step 5: Brush the marzipan with more of your melted jam and carefully place the fondant over the top of this. In the same manner as the marzipan, smooth the fondant into place so that it sits firmly adhered to the marzipan, around the cake.

Step 6: Trim any excess fondant. This can then be used for decoration, including using food coloring to add different shades.

Tips for Decoration

The process of frosting this cake is relatively straightforward, but if you're new to working with marzipan or fondant, there are a few tips I'd keep in mind:

• Don't feed the cake for at least 3 days, ideally a week, before frosting. It is best to ensure that the surface of the cake is dry to the touch so that you can best decorate.
• Powdered sugar is better than flour for rolling both pastes out. But, you really should sift it onto the work counter. If your sugar is lumpy or if the counter isn't clean, the pastes will pick up lumps, which are difficult to remove.
• Don't roll too thin - you're looking probably for about a quarter inch thickness, maybe slightly less. The exact amount you use is entirely up to you and how much marzipan or fondant you like! If you handle too much or roll too thinly, these pastes will both become a bit messy and more sticky.
• Place the rolled out pastes onto the top of the cake first and ease them down, rubbing them gently with your hand to get them to adhere more smoothly to the sides. As they'll be rolled out in rounds to go over the cake, working them gently to adhere will help avoid massive creases, which is a common issue with fondant in particular!
• Don't use a load of jam. The melted jam is helpful for giving a sticky surface, but using lots of jam can make a sticky mess and seep out between the layers. You just want a thin coat.
• Try to avoid getting jam on the pieces of marzipan and fondant that you trim away. If these are not coated in jam, they can be reused for other bakes or to add to the decoration of the Christmas cake. A bit of water or jam helps to stick decorations together.

Storage Advice

Like any good fruitcake, Christmas cakes are renowned for their longevity. You can make the cake itself several weeks, even months in advance. Keep it in an airtight container in a cool, dark place, and feed it regularly with your bourbon. The longer it matures, the stronger the flavors.

Once frosted, the cake will also continue to last quite well for several weeks. It doesn't require refrigeration - just storage in a cake tin or air tight container. The specifics of how long it will keep will depend more on the decorations than the cake.

I don't recommend freezing Christmas cake. Frankly there just isn't any need as it won't really extend the shelf life.

FAQs

More traditional Festive Recipes:

• Eggnog Bread Pudding
• Authentic Italian Pizzelle
• Old Fashioned Gingerbread Muffins