Last year I made a rum based cake but I guess rum is a more acquired taste as I had to eat much of it myself (not complaining!)
This year I am doing a very similar recipe but using the more traditional brandy to flavour and feed the cake: – here we go
UPDATE 21/12/17
I’ve been “feeding” the cake a good eggcup full of brandy every 3 weeks or so since it was made and boy does it smell good!
Today I have iced the cake, nothing special:
Coat the cake with a thin layer of apricot jam
Fold over a sheet of ready rolled marzipan, press in and trim the excess off
Fold over a sheet of ready rolled royal icing, press in and trim the excess off – smooth off to make it look flat
Decorate – I used green icing to make holly red and red for the berries.
Images below
INGREDIENTS
1kg mixed dried fruit – be adventurous and add things like pineapple & cranberry
Zest and juice of 1 orange
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
150ml Brandy or Sherry, Whisky, Rum – your tipple!
250g pack butter, softened
200g light soft brown sugar
175g plain flour
100g ground almond
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
100g flaked almond
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
METHOD
Put the dried fruit, zests and juice, alcohol, butter and sugar in a large pan set over a medium heat.
Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 5 mins.
Cool for 30 mins. This stops the eggs from cooking!
Heat oven to 150C/130C fan
Line a deep 20cm cake tin with a double layer of baking parchment.
Add the remaining ingredients to the fruit mixture and stir well, making sure there are no pockets of flour.
Tip into your prepared tin,
Bake in the centre of the oven for 2 hrs.
Remove the cake from the oven, poke holes in it with a skewer and spoon over 2 TBSP of your chosen alcohol. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin.
To store, peel off the baking parchment, then wrap well in cling film. Feed the cake with 1-2 TBSP of alcohol every fortnight, until you ice it.
Don’t feed the cake for the final week to give the surface a chance to dry before icing.
