Home made chistmas cake

Happy Christmas..

Today's post is a recipe for my homemade Christmas cake as I've never made a one before and thought I'd give it a go.

 

 

Oven: 150 degrees Celsius or gas mark 2

Time takes to cook: 4 1/2 hours

 

Ingredients:

 

What you'll need (cake mix):

12 ounces self-raising flour

1 tsp. mixed spice (optional)

4 ounces ground almonds

8 ounces butter/margarine

8 ounces caster sugar

4 eggs beaten with 8 tbsps. milk (or 1/2 milk and brandy)/

4 ounces halved glace cherries

24 ounces mixed fruit

 

 

 

What you'll need (top of the cake):

selection of nuts: almonds, walnuts, pecans

glace cherries

 

 

 

First, you'll need to sieve together the self-raising flour, spice (if you're using it) and ground almonds in one bowl. Then cream together the butter/margarine and sugar, stirring the flour and eggs with milk a little at a time in a separate bowl.

butter/margarine and sugar

 

ground almonds and self-raising flour

 

Once the butter and sugar are creamed together, it should look like this. Very light and a fluffy texture.

 

creamed butter/margarine and sugar

 

adding a little flour at a time then stirring together.

Lastly, add you mixed fruit a little at a time to the mixture as well as the glace cherries. You must make sure you mx all of the ingredients thoroughly!

 

 

Then, line and grease an 8inch square or 9inch round cake tin, (I used a round one) with grease proof paper (brown paper). Once you've lined your cake tin, pour in your mixture..

 

scoop in the mixture.

smooth out the mixture with the back of  a large spoon so that it's even.

Now, this part is optional but I then went ahead and arranged a selection of nuts on the top of mixture before it went in the oven. Creating a circle pattern starting from almonds to walnuts pecans and brazil nuts with a small circle of glace cherries in the centre.

 

 

All you have to do now is bake your Christmas cake in a slow oven on gas mark 2 or 150 degrees Celsius for 4 1/2 hours making sure not to let it burn and don't undercook by not giving it the full 4 1/2 hours. Don't open your oven door otherwise it'll deflate!

 

 

Thankyou for reading, have an amazing Christmas, everyone. I'd love to know in the comments if you've tried my recipe out!