Start Your Christmas Cake Now! - CT Examiner

Last week we unwrapped and cut open a Christmas cake, dark like mahogany, tall as a hat block, one we had tucked away on an upper shelf in a tin since last November, unsure whether a summer of neglect had made a hash of it.

For the first six or eight months, each week, we had dutifully peeled back parchment paper, flipped and moistened the cake with a tablespoon or two of brandy – a recipe we adapted from Jane Grigson’s English Food – a chore we abandoned around mid-July.

It was perfect.

With three months until the end of the year, it’s just now time to bake more for Christmas – in our case, a half dozen to send as gifts, and one or two to keep for company. If you have extras, like us, with a bit of brushing, they’ll keep well until Easter or the following Christmas.

Our particular version is for the purist, somewhat akin to a German stollen, but with a crumb that is lighter, cakier, and a 3 ½ hour slow bake that darkens the flavor, bittersweet, fragrant of spice and brandy.

The result is neither stodgy nor over-sweet.

In its most traditional form, you might finish it with a glaze of warmed apricot jam, rolled marzipan and royal icing, and the result would be tasty enough, if served at a formal gathering, and in tiny slivers.

Frankly, I’d rather have it plainly, and then perhaps a second, larger slice with a bit of cheese, stilton or cheddar as they might in the north of England.

Maybe for a bit of fun this year, we’ll swap out pecans for almonds in one cake and douse it instead in bourbon, brush another in a peaty Islay Scotch whisky and Angostura bitters, and a third with dark rum.

For this particular cake, we had homemade candied fruit on hand. But there are easy solutions for cherries in a pinch, you can buy better varieties of citrus and citron online, and the familiar store bought variety is really just fine.

A slighter taller 8-inch pan like this one works particularly well.

English Christmas Cake

Ingredients:

1 ½ lb. assorted dried currants and raisins
4 oz. candied orange, lemon and citron, chopped
4 oz. candied cherries
4 oz. whole roasted almonds
10 oz. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. dried ginger
1 tsp. grated nutmeg
zest of one lemon
8 oz. salted butter, softened
8 oz. dark brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbs. molasses
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbs. warmed milk
brandy

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 275 F.
Butter a eight inch cake pan and line with parchment paper and pour the mixture in, hollowing the top a little to compensate for it rising in the oven.
Combine the currants and raisins, candied fruit and almonds in a large bowl. Sprinkle with flour, spices and zest, mix to coat and separate.
In a separate bowl cream the butter and sugar. Mix in vanilla and molasses. Beat in four eggs, one at a time.
Gently incorporate into the fruit and flour mixture.
Mix baking soda into the warm milk. Stir in.
Adjust the consistency by mixing in enough brandy (about a 1/4 cup) to have a thick batter.
Cover with a lid of parchment and bake.
Cool in its pan overnight
Remove from pan, wrap in waxed paper and cover tightly in a metal cake tin.
Once a week, brush the top with a tablespoon or two of brandy, and flip, for a minimum of two months.