recipes
Need some inspiration?
Don’t worry, I’ll be posting some of my favourite recipes right here for you to create at home.
I’m a glug of this, splash of that kind of cook so don’t get too bogged down in exact measurements or ingredients. If I’ve listed something you don’t like, use something else!
Christmas Cake
300g self raising flour – plus a little extra for dusting fruit
100g ground almonds
1 tsp mixed spice
200g unsalted butter
200g golden caster sugar
4 medium eggs
75ml whole milk
75ml brandy
200g sultanas
200g raisins
100g glace cherries
50g dried sour cherries
Zest of 2 large oranges
1 tbsp whisky
1 tbsp drambuie
Sift the flour and stir in the ground almonds and mixed spice. In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs with the milk, brandy and orange zest and add to the creamed butter. Fold in the flour.
Add the dried fruit to a bowl and stir in around 1 tbsp flour making sure the fruit is lightly coated. This stops the fruit from sinking when the cake is cooking.
Add the flour coated fruit to the batter.
Pour into a greased and lined 9inch high sided cake tin.
Bake for 2.5 to 3 hours at 150oc or until a toothpick in the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool, turn out and when completely cold, pierce the top all over with a toothpick and spoon over the alcohol. Once it has completed soaked in, wrap the cake in two layers of greaseproof paper and then a layer of tightly wrapped foil. Leave somewhere cool and dry. Open up every one to two weeks and spoon over the whisky and Drambuie mix. Do this up to four times.
If you intend to ice the cake with marzipan and royal icing, leave a further week from feeding before icing.
