The Women’s Room Christmas cake: begining

This is our very favourite Christmas cake recipe, picked up from one of those Waitrose recipe cards a few years ago now, but the best one we’ve ever come across. And we know our cake here at the Women’s Room.

 

We normally make our cake around about Thanksgiving (which is this coming Thursday) as that seems a good time to start thinking about Christmas food. It takes a while to  make and all you need to know about today is how to soak the fruit, as it takes the best part of a week to absorb all the spices and alcohol.

 

Here’s what you need:

500g sultanas

250g raisins

250g dried apricots, quartered

200g cut mixed peel

200g glace cherries (we use those dark ones) halved

100g French prunes, quartered

Grated zest of a lemon and an orange

Juice of an orange

Pinch of saffron

100ml brandy or rum

 

 

Mix all the above together in a large bowl or plastic box. Cover and put in the fridge or somewhere cool for a week. Tumble or stir fruit about occasionally to ensure all are plumping nicely.

 

We'll cook the cake in a week's time so if you want to join us, add the following to your shopping list for next weekend:

 

250g butter

200g light muscovado sugar

5 eggs

200g walnut (or pecan) pieces

300g plain flour

 

Waitrose recipes

Comments

[steffi]

I try to visit The Women's Room at least once a day and am getting a little kick out of the fact that I might be the only 'Woman' in Switzerland, or at least the Italian part of Switzerland who is now officially following the Christmas Cake Recipe (not much longer, mind you, cos I am telling as many of my girlfriends as will listen about you...)- I do have my doubts as to whether I will be able to source all the 'correct' British ingredients, but "they" (the Swiss) do tend to have rather lovely organic, wholesome and generally divine alternatives to EVERYTHING, so I will let you know of the outcome. Swiss Christmas Cake. Yummy.