Quick Christmas Fruitcake

Cakes & BakingServes 8

If you’ve managed to polish off your entire Christmas cake between Christmas and New Year, continue the festive flavours well into January with this quick and simple fruitcake from the team at the award winning Shibden Mill Inn.

Ingredients

75g mixed peel

150g chopped chestnuts

220g raisins

100g sultanas

50g soft dark sugar

75ml aged port

75ml brandy

150g salted butter

100g dark brown sugar

3 whole eggs

5 tbsp dark rum

1tbsp powered cinnamon

1tbsp mixed spice

2tbsp baking powder

160g plain flour

Method

  1. Marinate the raisins and sultanas in the brandy, port and sugar for 24 hours.
  2. Preheated oven at 140ºc
  3. In a large bowl cream the butter and dark sugar together, then add the raisins, sultanas, mixed peel and chopped chestnuts
  4. Mixing thoroughly, add one egg at a time to the mixture and then the remaining spices, flour and baking powder.
  5. Line a terrine mould with grease proof paper and butter and spoon the mixture in
  6. Place in the oven for 2 hours until cooked through then remove and leave to cool for 2-3 hours before removing the cake from the mould.
  7. At this point, if you wanted you could soak the cake in more alcohol i.e more brandy or whiskey, before serving with Italian panettone bread and aged French brie.