Traditional Irish Christmas Cake
This is one of the Christmas Recipies that has been handed down to me. It has slighly less fruit and mixture, so, it won’t be as tall but that just means you can have a second slice with your cup of tea at Chrstmas.
Bring out the fruit and get this soaking in whiskey for a day to two.
I’d rarly show photos of the lining of a tin, but this is really important for Christmas Cake.
Reason being is it’s going to be in the oven for 3-4 hours so you don’t want the edges to burn.
Mixing in 90% of the batter to the whiskey soaked fruits.
Placing that in the perfectly preped cake tin.
Added in the 10% of the saved batter. (So that the raisins at the top don’t burn)
When it comes out of the oven it’s best to pour some more whiskey over it!
The color is just amazing! Very excited for Christmas now!
Then end result. It still smells so good a day after coming out of the oven.
Appling the almond paste can be trickey.
Applied the icing can be even trickier.
Merry Christmas everyone! It feels so christmasy!
- 20 Slices
- 40 minutes
- 180 minutes
Ingredients
Fruit Mix
- 125g (4oz) of raisins
- 125g (4oz) of glacé cherries
- 125g (4oz) of mixed peel
- 125g (4oz) of sultanas
- 450g (16oz) of currants
- 250ml (8.5 fl/oz) of whiskey
Cake
- 225g (8oz) of unsalted butter
- 225g (8oz) of brown sugar
- 225g (8oz) of plain flour
- 125g (4oz) of ground almonds
- 4 tsp of mixed spice
- 6 eggs
- 1 tin of strawberries (optional)
- The ones below if you don’t have mixed spice
- 1 tsp of ground Cinnamon
- 1 tsp of ground Nutmeg
- 1 tsp of ground Ginger
- 1 tsp of ground Cloves
Almond Paste
- 500g (17.5oz) of almond flour
- 225g (8oz) of icing sugar
- 225g (8oz) of caster sugar
- 3 egg
- 1/4 tsp of almond extract
Icing
- 1kg (36oz) of icing sugar
- 3-5 egg whites
- 1 tsp of glycerine
Misc
- Marmalade/Jam/Preserve/Jelly
Directions
Fruit Mix
- Put all of the fruit ingerdients from the “Fruit Mix” section into a bowl.
- Add in the whiskey and mix slowly till all the fruit is covered in whiskey.
- I won’t judge if you add more whiskey. (I’m known for adding more)
- Put cleanfilm over the bowl and leave for 24-48 hours, so that the fruit soaks up the whiskey.
- It’s ok if it’s left for a few days. (I’m also known for this too…)
Cake
- Cream the butter and sugar together.
- Sift in the flour and mixed spices.
- Add in the eggs gradually.
- When it’s well mixed remove around 10% of the mixture and place it in a small bowl.
- Back to the 90%: Add in the ground almonds.
- Add in the fruit soaked in whiskey and the optional tin of strawberries. (Mix by wodden spoon as it won’t break the fruit as much)
- At this point it’s tradition to make a wish while stiring the mixture infront of you. You can get everyone in the house to do so.
- Place the 90% mixture (cake batter and fruit mix) into your baking tin.
- Some people put a well in the middle but I don’t for my Christmas cakes, but if you would like to do that now is the time.
- Spread the 10% of the cake batter on top so it covers the raisins so that it doesn’t burn.
- If you forgot about the 10% you can push the raisins down by pouring boil hot water over the round end of a spoon and pushing the raisins down.
Bake
- Bake for 180-240 mins at 150°C (300°F). (Mine was 180 minutes because it’s not as big as a cake)
- When it’s out of the oven, pour some more whiskey over it.
- I let it cool in the tin over night, but you can take it out of the tin and let it rest.
- The next day wrap it up in parchment paper and tin foil.
Almond Paste
- Before starting the almond paste and icing, make sure it’s a few days before you want to cut into the cake.
- Secondly, coat the cake in either Marmalade/Jam/Preserve or Jelly, so that the almond paste can stick to the cake.
- For the almond paste, mix all of the ingredients together.
- If it’s too wet you can put in more icing sugar.
- Place the dough like mixture onto a flat surface.
- Start rolling out the almond paste.
- Measure a round circle and place that on top of the Christmas Cake.
- It’s ok if it’s too big, you can cut it down.
- Roll out more to do the sides.
Icing Sugar
- Mix all of the ingredients together.
- If the mixture is too dry I add more egg whites.
- The glycerine will make the icing soft for a very long time. Without it, it will be hard icing.
- Slowly place the icing onto the cake.
- When completly covered, I like to pat it down with my spatula and lift up quickly to get a spikey texture.
More delicious recipes
This is one of the many fantastic recipes available