Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
See more of Tamsin Burnett-Hall’s recipes
Tamsin Burnett-Hall
Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
See more of Tamsin Burnett-Hall’s recipes
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Ingredients
75ml dark or golden rum, plus (optional)
150g raisins
250g pack island fruit mix
35g dried mango, chopped35g dried mango, chopped
150g (red) glace cherries, quartered
6 pieces stem ginger in syrup, diced, plus 2 tbsp of the syrup
zest and juice of 1 lime
zest and juice of 1 orange
¼ of a whole nutmeg, grated
1 tbsp mixed spice
2 tsp ground ginger
200g soft unsalted butter, plus extra to grease
200g light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp black treacle
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
4 tbsp dark or golden rum for feeding during storage
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The cake will keep, well-wrapped and in an airtight container, for up to 3 months.
The night before baking, put 75ml rum in a bowl with all the dried fruits, diced ginger and its syrup, citrus zest and juice, and the spices. Stir together well, cover and leave overnight to plump up and absorb all the flavours.
If you want to avoid alcohol in your cake you can replace the rum with pineapple juice for soaking the fruit mixture (but don’t feed the cake with pineapple juice!)
Next day, grease and line the base and sides of a deep 20cm springform tin with a double layer of baking paper. Preheat the oven to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas 2.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with an electric whisk, beating for at least 2-3 minutes until really pale, then add the treacle. Sift the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt into a separate bowl. Add 1 egg at a time to the mixer, plus a spoonful of the flour mixture, making sure each egg is mixed in well before you add the next.
Fold in the rest of the flour using a large metal spoon. Tip in the soaked fruits and any liquid remaining in the bowl, and fold through until evenly combined. Scrape into the prepared tin, level the surface and cover the cake tin with a double layer of baking paper, with a small hole cut into the centre. Bake for 2 ½-3 hours, or until the cake is firm, golden brown and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Cool the cake in the tin, then unmould and remove the lining papers once completely cold. Wrap in fresh paper and foil before storing in an airtight container. The cake is lovely and moist, but if you wish you can feed the cake with a tablespoon of rum every week or so. Don’t overdo the feeding process though, or the cake will disintegrate into a mess of boozy crumbs! Finish feeding the cake at least a week before you plan to ice it, so that the surface of the cake isn’t damp.
Tip
Make it gluten-free: substitute gluten-free plain flour, adding 1 teaspoon xanthan gum at the same time.
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Dry Fruits like Plums, Black Raisins, Golden Raisins, Cranberries, Cherries are used. Candied Orange Peel adds a nice citrusy flavor to the soaked fruit. Good quality Rum is used to soak the fruits and nuts. Some prefer to use a mixture of rum and brandy or wine too.
Things start off boozy right from the get go with the soaking of the fruit. Soak all your dried fruits in your spirit of choice – whisky or brandy would be the most traditional options, though other aged spirits like rum also work, and sweeter additions like sherry, Cointreau or amaretto will add their own character.
Hiding small tokens in a cake is another tradition that has existed throughout the ages. The Christmas Sixpence, which is hidden inside a Christmas pudding or cake as a token of good fortune, being a recent example of this tradition.
Wrapping the tin in brown paper helps slow the baking of the cake to a more steady temperature, avoiding the outside of the cake being overdone (or worse, burnt) while the inside is still raw.
Most recipes call for dried fruit to be soaked overnight. I take a speedy approach: just microwave the dried fruit with juice and/or brandy, then stand for 1 hour to soak up the liquid. So much faster – and just as effective! Other than that, there's nothing unusual about how this fruit cake is made.
Most people use brandy. I think this tastes better. This cake does NOT need to mature for weeks to taste gorgeous - 6 days from start to finish is as much time as you need. Although, if you prefer a more leisurely pace, that also works.
Opinions on the "maturing" of Christmas cakes does vary and is partly an issue of personal taste, but for the rich fruit type of Christmas cakes we would suggest making them up to 3 months ahead of Christmas.
That honor goes to a 4,176-year-old cake that was found in an Egyptian tomb, according to the Guinness organization. It is on display in a food museum in Switzerland.
In the 1980s, a woman unmarried by 25 was dismissed as "Christmas cake" — thrown out on Dec. 26. These days the big number is 31, and women unmarried by that age are "New Year's Eve noodles," noodles being a typical New Year's Eve dish.
Christmas cakes are also commonly made with pudding while a fruit cake uses butter, however there are Christmas cake recipes that do contain butter. The traditional Scottish Christmas cake, also known as the Whisky Dundee, is very popular. It is a light crumbly cake with currants, raisins, cherries and Scotch whisky.
In an oven that's too hot, the outside of the cake cooks at a much faster rate than the inside. A crust forms early on, but as the inside of the cake continues to cook and rise, this crack crusts. You might experience the same problem if the cake recipe has too much leavener or if you've used a pan that's too small.
However you do need a fairly deep tin for all sizes of Christmas cake. A regular sandwich tin (cake pan) will not be deep enough - you ideally need a loose-bottomed cake tin or springform pan which is around 8cm/3 1/2 inches deep.
What equipment is needed to store a cake. Firstly, you'll need to place the cake on a cake board. Then wrap the cake in a double layer of baking paper and then in a double layer of foil. Secure the layers with an elastic band and put the wrapped cake in an airtight container.
Allow cakes to cool in pans on racks. When cooled, remove cakes from pans and remove parchment paper. Brush cakes generously with sweet sherry, brandy, rum, port, liqueur or fruit juice; do not use wine.
And you can use other alternatives such as sweet sherry, Grand Marnier or Amaretto. It is possible to use orange juice instead of alcohol to soak the fruits but we would not use it to feed the cake with after baking as fruit juice spoils more easily than alcohol.
Yes, you can make a fruit cake without brandy. Instead of brandy, you can use alternative liquids like apple juice, orange juice, or even tea to soak the dried fruits and add moisture and flavor to the cake.
For a mixing bowl, add 1 teaspoon baking soda to every 2 cups cold water. If your produce is on a vine, such as tomatoes, or leafy like a head of lettuce, separate the produce and remove all vines and outer leaves. Submerge the fruit or vegetables in the baking soda water. Let soak for 12 to 15 minutes.
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Prep time: 45 mins 
