Holy Week/Easter – Meanderings through my cookbook (2024)

This isa very special recipe, one I turn toagain andagain for a rich fruit cake: forChristmas, Easteroreven the occasional ‘special’ birthday. (Itwould also make a good wedding cake, but that is outside my experience.) Its full title in my recipefile is Special Occasion Cake (from Mrs Maud Farrant) written in my mother’s hand. As with all good recipes it is a ‘hand-me-down’. I am the third generation, at least, to use it. It came from my father’s mother, my ‘nanna’ as we called her andthrough her daughter, my aunt, to my mother. Each time I make this recipe I do so with a sense of pride and connection with the past, especially as my nanna and aunt are no longer with us. It is especially lovely tohaveit each Christmas and alsoto turn it into an Simnel Cake at Easter. I really hope that the tradition will continue with my own daughter: that in yearsto come I will be able to eat a slice of a cake from the same recipe in her home!

Here is this year’s Christmas cake, made a little later than I had hoped but looking just as tasty as usual. Each year it is decorated slightly differently. This year it will be a version of the traditional topping of marzipan and icing (the photo will appear on this page in due course). Last year I finished the cake with an unusual sweet and crunchy Florentine topping, from an idea in Tesco’s 2009 free instore magazine which I will definitely be repeating (recipe and picture further down). I have also often made it into a Dundee cake, covered with concentric rings of nuts and glacé cherries before it was baked. Our last Dundee Cake was before I started this blog so there are no photos, but it is about time we ate one again. Perhaps Christmas 2011 unless I develop another plan. (As mentioned before I also use this recipe for my Simnel Cake at Easter and more recently for our Silver Wedding Celebration Cake – pictures and details below or by following the link.)

Although this cake doesn’t take long to mix, it is really important to have the timings in mind. For best results it needs to be started in advance, preferably the day before as the fruit needs to be soaked in alcohol and plump up. Actually, I have forgotten this several times and it is still delicious – just leave for as long as possible and go ahead. Remember too that the cooking time is around 2¼hours, give or take a bit, so if you put it in the oven late in the evening (again I admit to doing this) plan to stay up past midnight waiting for it to cook – you have been warned! Some people like to ‘feed’ a cake by piercing the bottom of the cooked cake with a skewer and pouring over a small amount of additional alcohol. There was no instruction to do this in the original recipe and I know my mother does not, however, as recommended by others, I feed my Christmas Cake just a little and like to think it is an improvement. I never feed a Simnel Cake and we enjoy it just as much. It all comes down to personal preference. (The measurements given are Imperial and I am loth to convert the original as I am afraid that adjusting the measurements may make the cake less successful.)

Basic Recipe: Special Occasion Rich Fruit Cake
*Mixed dried fruit can be either a combination of sultanas, raisins and currants or the ready mixed variety with mixed peel included, in which case add an extra 2ozs mixed fruitinstead of adding the peel or add another 2ozs glacé cherries.

Start this recipein advance andsoak the mixed fruit in the brandy at least overnight.
2tbsp brandy (rum can be used as an alternative)
1½lb (or1lbfor a lessrich and heavycake) mixed dried fruit (*see note above)
2ozs peel (unless using mixed fruit with peel – *see note above)

8ozs butter, at room temperature
8ozs soft brown sugar
3 large or 4 small eggs
10ozs self raising flour
large pinch salt
1 level tsp mixed spice
1 level tsp cinnamon
2ozs glacé cherries (*see note above)
1oz blanched chopped almonds or flaked almonds
a little milk to mix, if required

1. Place the mixed fruit in a bowl, pour over the brandy andcover. Leave tosoak overnight.

2. Line a 8-9inchloose bottomedtin with non stick baking parchment.I do thisby cutting a ring for the base and a longstrip that is 2 inches more that thewidth and height of thesides. Fold up the spare 2 inches of liner along the long sideand cut into it at about 1inch intervals up to the fold along the entire length. Use this to line the inside of the tin, folding in the cut pieces to part line the bottom. Place the circle of liner on top. It should not need greasing, but you may just like to add a few dabs of oil to help it adhere to the tin.

3. Preheat the oven to150^oC/140^oC Fan/300^oF/Gas 2.

4.Cream the butter with the sugar until light and very creamy.

5.Break an egg into a jug and gently mix with a fork. Add a little at a time to the butter and sugar mixture, beating well between each addition. Continue in the same way until all the eggs are added. Beat the mixture very well.

6. Add the soaked fruit, cherries and almonds andmix in well.

7. Sift the flour, ground spices and saltinto the cake mixture and gently fold in, until the flour has disappeared.Gently stira little milk to the mixture if it seems a little stiff.

8. Tip the mixture into the prepared tin, pressing down well into the bottomand smooth out so the top is flattened.

9. Make a collar out of three or four sheets of newspaper about twice the height of the tin and tie in place around thecakewith string. This prevents burning. (I find the Waltham Forest Guardian makes an excellent ring, but doesn’t add anything particular to the taste –so feel free to use any newspaper!)

10. Place in the centre of the preheated oven. Check after 2hours by gently pressing the top to see if it is still spongy and/or inserting a skewer to see if it comes out cleanly. I usually find that it needs a further 15 minutes in my ovenbut the original instructions specify 2½ hours (and in one place it says 2½ to 3hours– a non fan oven instruction).

11. When cooked remove from the oven, take off the newspaper collar, ease out of the tin and remove the lining paper. Placeonto a wire rack to cool.

12. When cold the cake can be stored in a tin until it is ready to be finished. Place it on the lid of the tin and cover with the upside down tin base. (Label the bottom ‘thisway up’ so no one forgets!) If you want to ‘feed’ the cakepierce the base, not the top, with a skewer and gently drizzle about a tablespoon of extra brandy into the holes. This can be repeated at regular occasions. If I make my cake in November I usually do itfour or fivetimes between baking and the time it is decorated.

The cake is now ready to be decorated. See below for some of the cakes we have eaten … plus decorating information.

Finishing touches …

Starry Night Cake – Christmas 2010
Traditional marzipan and white icing (fondant). Design by hopeeternal
(more information about the cake and design)

Florentine Topping for Christmas Cake(December 2009)
(Amount generously covers a 23cm/9inch cake)

Florentine Topping is an alternative to the usual Christmas marzipan and white icing.Mixed red & green cherries, if available, would be a pretty alternative. If you can get whole candied fruit to chop this is preferable to bought ready chopped peel in a tub. This recipe comes from the Tesco In Store Free Magazine, November-December 2009.

25g/1oz butter
2tbsp golden syrup
50g/2ozs flaked almonds
50g/2ozs roughly chopped walnuts
200g/7ozs halved red cherries
50g/2ozs chopped mixed peel
1tbsp plain flour

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180^oC/160^oC Fan oven/Gas 4

2. Melt the butter and golden syrup together in a pan.

3. Stir in the almonds and walnuts.

4. Stir in the cherries and mixed peel.

5. Stir in the flour and mix thoroughly.

6. Place the cake on a baking tray and spoon over the Florentine Topping aiming for as even a layer as possible.

7. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes. Gently lift onto a rack to cool and decorate with ribbon to serve.

8. Can be stored in a cake tin for up to two weeks.

Dundee Style Christmas Cake – December 2011
Walnut halves, pecan nut halves, blanched almonds, red and green glace cherries. Design by hopeeternal
More information about this cake

Dundee Cake (simplified topping using blanched almonds & cherries)
For a generous topping use 50-60 whole blanched almonds and 12-15 halved cherries. Start with a ring of evenly spaced nuts around the edge of the uncooked cake mixture. Within this place a ring of halved cherries. Then a second ring of nuts and finally a small ring of cherriesand a central cherry or nutif space permits. Try to place the nuts and cherries without smearing the cake mixture on them for a clean looking finish. The finish can be varied by adding other nuts, differently coloured cherries or changing the design from the usual formal concentric rings.

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Traditional Simnel Cake for Easter
A Simnel cake can be madewith brandy or rum, as in the basic recipe above,or alternatively pre-soak the fruit in the juice of half afresh orange.Simnel Cakes were originally made for theirmothers byworking childrenas a gift forMothering Sunday,the third Sunday in Lent, which fallsthree weeks before Easter. Nowadays Simnel Cakes are mostly eaten at Easter.See Afternoon Tea for MotheringSundayfor more information.

A Simnel Caketraditionally has 11 marzipan balls around the edge–one for each Disciple or Apostle of Jesus, except for Judas Iscariot! Counting is not my strong point (!) I miscounted and managed to add 12 ballsinstead of the usual 11. A pity because I was very pleased with the cake. Here it is …

First make the 11 smallmarzipan balls of around 2cm in diameter, before dividing the remaining marzipan in half.Cut the cake horizontally through the centre into twoequal pieces. Roll one piece of marzipaninto a circle. Lightly spread the cut surface of the cake with apricot jam andplacea rolledout circle of marzipan on top, putting any trimmings to one side.Spread overa little morejam andcover withthe second half of the cake.Roll a second circle from the remaining marzipanand place on the top of the cake. Trim to size and reserve thetrimmings.The top can bemarked in a lattice pattern, if required, using a light touch of a knifeand the 11 marzipan balls are thenplaced equidistantly around the edge – a very little jam can be used to keep them in place. Flash grill the top of the cake until the marzipan starts to bubble and slightly brown –take careas it burns quickly. Any other decorations, such as sugar or foil covered chocolate eggs, fresh or sugar flowers or other itemsshould be added when the surface is cold.

This version is decorated with a nest usingthe marzipantrimmings pushed through a clean garlic press to create strands. When cool place a small pile of sugar covered chocolate eggs in the central nest.

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Silver Wedding Anniversary Celebration Cake

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