Christmas cake

I made this fruit cake last year for christmas. I took as my basis a classic Mary Berry recipe found here, but made a few small changes. You can make this a couple of months in advance of christmas and then add alcohol like brandy (or orange juice if you want to avoid alcohol) to the cake weekly until you are ready to decorate it.

Ingredients

200g Glace cherries
300g Raisins
350g Sultanas
150g Currants
70g dried mixed berries
200ml brandy
Zest of 2 oranges
250g Butter
250g Light muscovado sugar
4 eggs
1 tbs treacle
100g chopped almonds
75g self raising flour
175g plain flour
100g ground almonds
2 tsp mixed spice

Method

1. Place the dried fruit in a bowl with the orange zest and pour over the brandy. Cover and leave to soak for up to 3 days stirring each day. 
2. Preheat the oven to 140ºC/Fan 120ºC/Gas Mark 1.
3. Grease and double line a 23cm (9in) round cake tin. Cover the outside of the tin with brown paper to prevent the outside from burning.* 
4. Weigh out the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and almonds into a bowl and beat with a hand mixer (or by hand). Mix in the flour, ground almonds and mixed spice followed by the pre-soaked fruit. Pour the mix into the prepared tin.
5. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 3½-4 hours. Check your cake after 2 hours and if it's already well browned cover with foil. The cake should feel firm and be browned on top.  The cake is ready when a skewer or knife placed into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool.
6. Once the cake can be handled, remove it from the tin and make holes all over the cake with a skewer. Pour brandy all over the cake (approx. 3-4 tablespoons). Wrap well and store in an airtight tin. 
7. Add extra brandy approx. 2-3 tablespoons each week until you are ready to decorate. 

*I didn't do this and the outside of cake got a little over done. There is a helpful tutorial on protecting your cake in Delia Smith's christmas cake recipe here. 

Now on to my favourite part which is decorating the cake. First up I needed to add the marzipan layer. In order to get a flat top to the cake I used a method demonstrated by Dan Lepard on the BBC website which can be found here. Instead of just placing the marzipan over the cake like you would icing, he does the top first followed by the edge. There are detailed instructions in the link and it will probably make more sense to watch Dan Lepard's video but to briefly summarise:

• Roll out the marzipan to approx. 1cm thick and larger than your cake. Brush the top of the cake with some melted jam. Place the cake upside down on the marzipan and gently push down. 
• Cut the excess marzipan leaving a 2cm border around the cake and use a palette knife to press the marzipan into the edge of the cake. It should look like the first photo below
• Brush the edge of the cake with melted jam. Add a strip of marzipan around the cake.

After I was happy with the marzipan I added the fondant icing.

Once I had completed the icing I began my favourite part which is creating the fondant decorations for the top. I used snowflake plunger cutters, which you can get on eBay or similar sites. I made the penguins with the left over white icing and Renshaw ready coloured icings in black, red and yellow. To secure the decorations to the cake I used a very small amount of water as 'glue'. Once dry the decorations should be stuck securely.

The final completed cake. 

Thanks for reading x

Lebkuchen

Lebkuchen are spiced german biscuits which are a little bit like ginger bread with a soft cakey texture. I wanted to have a try making my own this year and I also made some for christmas gifts as well.

Lebkuchen (makes approx. 35)

Ingredients
100g Honey
100g Treacle
20g butter
1 egg
1 tbs lemon juice
zest from 1 lemon
250g plain flour
100g ground almonds
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger

Method

Heat up the honey and treacle until it reaches boiling point and remove from the heat. (I think just honey would also work, or golden syrup but I had some left over treacle from making a christmas cake.) Stir in the sugar and butter until melted, followed by the lemon juice, zest and egg. Mix well until all the ingredients are combined.

Finally stir in the dry ingredients of flour, ground almonds, bicarbonate of soda and the spices. It will look like a gooey, brown mess.

Don't worry if the dough seems a bit wet, place in a food bag or bowl and pop in the fridge overnight.

The first run of making these I tried using christmas shaped cookie cutters but the dough is very difficult to work with and roll out. If you have more patience than me, feel free to try rolling out (with plenty of flour) and give cutters a try, but it was too time consuming and awkward for me. I found it best to make small balls of dough (approximately 20g each) using a little flour to stop them sticking to my hands and then patted the balls into round cookie shapes.

Place the cookies in a preheated oven 180 °C for 8-10 minutes until lightly browned. The cookies may still look a little soft when you get them out the oven but they will harden as the cool. Allow to cool on the tray for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack or plate to cool completely.

Once cool you can eat them as they are, or you can add icing or chocolate to them.

Do you like baking for christmas? What are your favourites?

Thanks for reading x