Christmas cake recipe mary berry - Christmas cake
Author: Carlos Doughty
Bakes in just 2hrs 15 mins Mary Berry´s Victorian Christmas Cake or Genoa Cake. This Easy Christmas Cake, inspired by Mary Berry, is beautifully moist and totally delicious!
Easy Christmas Cake
This Easy Christmas Cake, inspired by Mary Berry, is beautifully moist and totally delicious! A classic British fruitcake which can be made well ahead of Christmas and left to mature, fed with brandy for an even richer flavour.
Provided by: Lucy Parissi | Supergolden Bakes
Total time: 255 minutes
Cook time: 240 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: 12 servings
Cuisine: British
Number of ingredients: 16
Provided by: Lucy Parissi | Supergolden Bakes
Total time: 255 minutes
Cook time: 240 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: 12 servings
Cuisine: British
Number of ingredients: 16
Ingredients:
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) brandy (or rum / whisky / amaretto / cherry brandy etc.)
- 150 g (5.3 oz) dried apricots
- 200 g (7oz) dates or prunes (stone removed)
- 250 g (2 cups) plain flour ((all purpose flour))
- 250 g (1 ½ cups) light brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 225 g (1 cup) softened butter
- 660 g (1.4 pounds) mincemeat (from a jar)
- 200 g (7 oz) glacé cherries (quartered)
- 3 tbsp brandy (or your choice of liqueur) (every time you feed the cake)
- 60 ml (¼ cup) egg whites (from a carton or two large eggs)
- 450 g (1 pound) icing sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp liquid glucose
- 4 tbsp apricot jam (sieved, to glaze, or as needed)
- 450 g (1 pound) marzipan (you will not need to use it all)
Nutrition:
- Calories: 973 kcal
- Carbohydrate: 171 g
- Protein: 11 g
- Fat: 27 g
- Saturated Fat: 4 g
- Trans Fat: 1 g
- Cholesterol: 55 mg
- Sodium: 537 mg
- Fiber: 5 g
- Sugar: 137 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 21 g
- Serving Size: 1 serving
- Make the cake
- Preheat the oven to 140°C (285°F). Mist a 20cm (8inch) deep cake tin with cake release or grease with butter. Line the bottom and sides with a double layer of baking paper (don’t skip this step).
- Chop the apricots and dates into small raisin-size pieces. Add the brandy (or your choice of alcohol) and heat in the microwave for 60 seconds to plump up the fruit. Set aside.
- Add the flour and brown sugar to a large mixing bowl and briefly stir together to combine. Now add the eggs and butter and beat together with a hand mixer (or a stand mixer) until you have a smooth batter, scraping down the sides of the bowl halfway.
- Add the mincemeat and beat in on a low speed setting. Fold the soaked dried fruit and glacé cherries into the batter with a spatula.
- Spoon the batter to the prepared tin and level. Make a small indent in the centre of the cake to help it bake evenly.
- Bake for 4 – 4 ½ hours, until the cake is risen, golden and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Check the cake at the 3 hour mark and tent with foil if it is getting too dark. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.
- Use a skewer to poke holes over the cake. Feed the cake with the brandy and wait until the alcohol soaks into the cake.
- Leave the cake in the tin, well wrapped in the baking paper and a layer of foil. Keep in a cool place, feeding the cake with your choice of alcohol every fortnight if time allows.
- Make the Royal Icing
- Traditional Christmas cake is usually covered with a layer of marzipan and royal icing. I prefer to only cover the top of the cake as I find the traditional toppings far too sweet. Ice the cake 2-3 days before serving.
- Beat the egg whites until frothy then gradually add the icing sugar a tablespoon at a time mixing on low speed.
- Add the lemon juice and glycerine and beat on high speed setting until the icing until it holds firm peaks. Cover the surface of the icing with plastic wrap to keep from drying out unless you are using straight away.
- Decorate the cake
- Dust your worktop liberally with icing sugar and soften the marzipan in your hands. Roll out the marzipan (slightly larger than 20cm/8inch) and then cut a circle the size of your cake using the cake tin as a guide.
- Carefully flip the cake over so that you are using the flat underside. Brush the cake with warm sieved apricot jam and use small pieces of the marzipan to fill any small holes on the cake surface.
- Position the marzipan circle over the cake and press down so that it sticks. Smooth the top and sides and leave it to dry for a few hours or overnight.
- Spoon the Royal Icing over the cake and spread using an offset spatula. Leave to dry so that it hardens and decorate with frosted cranberries, rosemary sprigs or iced gingerbread cookies.
Tags:
Mary Berry's Christmas fruit cake recipe
Mary Berry's fruit cake is a Christmas favourite. It's packed with dried fruit, ground almonds, and a twist of pineapple. Bakes in just 2hrs 15 mins
Provided by: Mary Berry
Total time: 150 minutes
Cook time: 135 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: 1 item
Cuisine: British
Number of ingredients: 11
Provided by: Mary Berry
Total time: 150 minutes
Cook time: 135 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: 1 item
Cuisine: British
Number of ingredients: 11
Ingredients:
- 350g (12 oz) red or natural glacé cherries
- 225 g (8 oz) can of pineapple in natural juice
- 350 g (12 oz) ready-to-eat dried apricots
- 100 g (4 oz) blanched almonds (skins removed)
- Finely grated rind of 2 lemons
- 350 g (12 oz) sultanas
- 250 g (9 oz) self-raising flour
- 250 g (9 oz) caster sugar
- 250 g (9 oz) softened butter
- 75 g (3 oz) ground almonds
- 5 large eggs
Nutrition:
- Calories: 746 Kcal
- Sugar: 74 g
- Fat: 29 g
- Sodium: 0.7 g
- Protein: 10 g
- Carbohydrate: 112 g
- Pre-heat the oven to 160°C fan/140°C/gas mark 3. Grease a 23 cm (9 in) deep round cake tin then line the base and sides with a double layer of baking parchment.
- Cut the cherries into quarters, put in a sieve and rinse under running water then drain well. Drain and roughly chop the pineapple, then dry the pineapple and cherries very thoroughly on kitchen paper. Snip the apricots into pieces. Roughly chop the almonds. Place the prepared fruit and nuts in a bowl with the grated lemon rind and sultanas and gently mix together.
- Measure the remaining ingredients into a large bowl and beat well for 1 min until smooth. Lightly fold in the fruit and nuts then turn the mixture into the prepared cake tin. Level the surface and decorate the top with blanched whole almonds, halved glacé cherries and pieces of glacé pineapple.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 2¼ hours or until golden brown. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Cover the cake loosely with foil after 1 hour to prevent the top becoming too dark.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 30 mins then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack. Mix the icing sugar with a little water, and drizzle over the cake to glaze.
Mary Berry’s Victorian Christmas Cake
Mary Berry´s Victorian Christmas Cake or Genoa Cake. Traditional cake from UK made with fruit and usually eaten at Christmas.
Total time: 150 minutes
Cook time: 135 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: 12 servings
Number of ingredients: 17
Total time: 150 minutes
Cook time: 135 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: 12 servings
Number of ingredients: 17
Ingredients:
- 250 g pastry/cake flour
- 75 g ground almonds
- 5 large eggs
- 250 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 250 g sugar
- 8 g baking powder
- 220 g red glacé cherries
- 225 g canned pineapple in its juice, without sugar
- 250 g sultanas
- 50 g dried apricots
- 50 g raw almonds
- 2 lemons, finely grated zest only
- pinch of salt
- raw almonds
- red glacé cherries
- candied orange
- 2 tsp apricot jam
How to cook:
- Add the sultanas in a heat-resistant bowl and pour 250 g of boiling water over them.
- Leave to soak for 30 minutes.
- After this time, drain and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 320ºF/160ºC.
- Grease the Push-Pan with butter, sprinkle with flour and remove the excess by turning it over. Set aside.
- Sift the flour together with the ground almond, the baking powder and the salt. Set aside.
- In the KitchenAid bowl add the butter together with the sugar and beat with the flat-beater.
- Gradually increase the speed to level 3. Beat until creamy, airy and whitish.
- Begin to add the eggs. We will do it one by one and waiting for it to be completely integrated before adding the next one.
- We begin to add the mixture of dry ingredients. Do it little by little and mixing at the same time.
- We must not over beat the mixture, this is very important to obtain a spongy result, we mix only until the ingredients are integrated.
- Mix the chopped fruits with flour removing the excess. This step will help to distribute the fruits all over the cake, without falling to down.
- Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth the surface with a spatula.
- Place in the oven at medium height and bake for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Halfway through cooking, cover the cake with aluminium foil to prevent it from browning excessively.
- Before taking it out of the oven we will check that it is well baked by pricking it with a toothpick, it must come out clean.
- Take it out and let it rest on a rack for 60 minutes.
- Heat the apricot jam for a few seconds in the microwave.
- Brush the surface of the cake with it.
- In case some of the cherries are too submerged in the cake, we can decorate the surface with cherries in quarters.
