Christmas Cake

No matter how tasty the turkey the ten different trimmings or even the Christmas pudding, every experienced Christmas dinner guest always saves a little spot for that seasonal pièce de résistance: the wonderful phenomenon called Christmas cake.

Christmas cakes are very popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as in many other Commonwealth countries. Like for mulled wine, there are as many recipes for Christmas cake as there are people preparing them. Just about the only thing the seasonal cakes have in common is fruit…

One of the most popular Christmas cakes is the Whiskey Dundee, a light, crumbly cake made with – of course – whiskey, cherries, sultanas, candied peel and currants, and topped with almonds. Apple pie is another seasonal favourite, and many Britons love mince pies, too (you can read more about those by scrolling down and clicking the link in the “related articles” section). Below you will find the recipe for a traditional Whiskey Dundee – as you will notice, it isn’t all that hard to make. Enjoy!

The Whiskey Dundee

Ingredients: 8 oz of sultanas, 8 oz of currants, 3 oz of mixed candied peel, 1 tablespoon of ground almonds, 3 oz of glace cherries, ½ a lemon, 1 oz of blanched split almonds, 6 oz of butter, 6 oz of sugar, 4 eggs, 8 oz of plain flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 1 tablespoon of milk, 2 tablespoons of whiskey, 2 tablespoons of milk.

Preparation: Put the dried fruit and the mixed peel in an oven tray, cover up and heat in a low temperature oven for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool for a few hours. Now you are ready to start the real work. Mix the butter and the sugar until the blend is completely smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and gradually add the flour as well. Stir in the ground almonds, the fruit, the mixed peel, the rind of the lemon together with its juice, the baking powder and - finally - the whiskey. Your dough is ready now.

Take a baking tin (an 8 inch one is perfect for this volume of dough), grease it and line it with non-sticking baking parchment. Distribute the dough evenly into the tin and cover up with foil. Bake the cake at 150° Celsius for a total of 2 and ½ hours. After about an hour, take the tin out of the oven, remove the foil and sprinkle the almonds on top of the cake. Cover up again and put back in the oven for the remainder of the time.

When the two and a half hours are nearly up, boil the two tablespoons of milk with one tablespoon of sugar. About five minutes before the cake is ready, take it out and brush its top with the milk and sugar mix. Put it back in the oven without the foil. Wait for five minutes, remove the cake from the tin, allow it to cool, cut and serve. Bon appétit!