Traditional dark Christmas Cake with dried figs, cherries, raisins, currants, & sultanas. Kept simple without the addition of royal icing but liberally dosed with brandy once a week as it matures for at least 3 weeks.
This did not start with me. I remember my mother oiling brown paper bags to line Grandma’s cake tins that were only ever used for Christmas cake. I remember my parents diligently drizzling brandy over the cakes stored in the cold cellar once a week in the month leading up to Christmas. In all those years that my mother made those cakes for my dad, I never had a piece. They seemed strange and full of lumpy fruit and nuts that I avoided as a child.
Mom drifted away from making Christmas cake sometime in my teenage years. She still made many of our other traditional Christmas treats, such as shortbreads, which is an absolute necessity for Mom at Christmas. I think it is hard-wired into her British DNA. The need to make this cake shortly after the start of Advent so that it can mature made it challenging to squeeze it in during the busy weeks before Christmas break. Getting out of the habit of making the Christmas cakes led to the pans being tucked away in storage for well over a decade.
When my dad asked me if I wanted the pans that were his mother’s, that my mother had used for all those years, I could sense the hope in the question. The hope that they would carry on and be used for a traditional, dark Christmas Cake again.
I made a traditional English Christmas Cake for the first time last year with Grandma Elliott’s old dented pans. My mom used a recipe from the Five Roses Flour cookbook, but I had cut one out of the Jamie Oliver magazine that I wanted to try. I made a few tweaks to it and I did not ice it with marzipan and royal icing like they did in the magazine. I kept the farmhouse tradition of my family of not gilding the lily and kept the cake plain. Just how my parents like it.
Even if you don’t love fruitcake I encourage you to make this just for the smell alone that permeates your house while baking. The scent of the amalgamation of butter, brown sugar, molasses, soul-warming Christmas spices, and the rich bouquet of dried fruit, is so incredibly intoxicating. I was tired and stressed out with a newborn but I made this cake while my eldest son was at school and the fragrance washed over me and I knew Christmas was coming.
Dousing the cakes with a brandy yesterday gave me a chance to recognize that I was making progress towards creating the special Christmas I want to have with my family despite the current challenges we have been faced with the past week. Opening the tin to check on my dad’s Christmas present and letting that aroma drift towards me made me smile. I won’t be decorating gingerbread cookies with a handful of little kids this year, nor will I be doing a cookie exchange, but the important treat is done.
I have some traditions of my own that I’ve started with my little family, such as: Gingerbread Madeleines for Christmas morning, followed by brunch that includes Buckwheat Crepes made on Christmas Eve. I may also be cheating a little bit by ordering some croissants, quiche and a Buche De Noel from a French style bakery in town. I still plan on pulling together a turkey dinner on Christmas Day with the help of my mom.
I want new and old traditions to be part of my young family’s Christmas Day celebration. Using Grandma Elliott’s old tins for a Christmas Cake that will be enjoyed by my parents and shared with my aunts and uncles brings up memories of Elliott family Christmas dinners hosted by the sisters and sisters-in-law (my dad is one of 10 kids) that was so important to my Grandma. One of my aunts would be in charge of making Plum Pudding and all the women would be in the kitchen pulling together a huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings for a crowd of 40-45 people.
My grandma passed away many years ago and all my cousins are grown with their own families now so we don’t get together at Christmas anymore. I hold fond memories of running wild with my cousins and sitting close to where my dad was telling dirty jokes with his sisters and brothers without him seeing me. Those memories may be far off now but the Christmas cake tins give me a tangible connection to that past. The recipe I use to make Christmas cake may be new and I’m not entirely sure my teetotaller Grandma Elliott would approve of the amount of brandy I use in my recipe, but I hope she is watching from above. I hope she is pleased that the tins she used to make an indulgent treat for her large family on the farm are still used for the same family and with as much love as she did.
My Grandmother’s vintage Christmas Cake tins from the 1930s. Used only once a year strictly for Christmas cakes.
Christmas Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp molasses
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup ground almonds
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1/4 tsp cardamom
- 2 cups raisins
- 1 cup currants
- 1 cup sultanas
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1 cup dried figs finely chopped
- 1 cup dried cherries
- 1/4 cup brandy or rum + 2 tbsp each week as cake matures
- 3/4 cup mixed peel
Instructions
- Mix together the dried fruit with 1/4 cup of brandy and set aside while you prepare the pans and batter.
- Line an 8" springform pan with parchment paper on the bottom and the sides. Place the pan on a baking sheet to catch any butter leakage when it is baking.
- Mix the spices with the flour and set aside for a moment.
- Beat together the butter, brown sugar, molasses and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs.
- Beat in the ground almonds and then slowly stir in the flour and spice mixture using a wooden spoon or use a paddle attachment of a stand mixer.
- Stir in the dried fruit mixture making sure the batter is uniformly mixed with the dried fruit.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and spread it so that the top is reasonably flat.
- Bake at 325 F for 1 hour 45 mins to 2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake and the top of the cake is evenly dark brown.
- Let the cake cool for a half hour in the pan and then let it cool further on a rack. Place mostly cooled cake in a cake tin with a lid that has been lined with a piece of parchment paper large enough to wrap around the cake. Poke lots of holes in the cake with a skewer and sprinkle two or three tablespoons of brandy over the cake.
- Make this cake three or four weeks before you plan to serve it and douse the cake with a couple tablespoons of brandy each week as it matures.
Christina, the hairs on the back of my arms stood up as I read this beautiful ode to your Grandma Elliot. There is something so special about intentionally carrying forth these humble traditions from one generation to the next. Do yourself a favor and leave those tins out where you can see them even when the holiday passes. They’re beautiful and will anchor you, much as I’m sure your grandmother would were she still alive, whether they’re filled with boozy Christmas cake or just perched on an open shelf.
Thank you so much Cheryl! I have found a place in a cabinet with glass doors for the tins so they can have pride of place. I bet Grandma would have a little piece of boozy cake and giggle at being so naughty.
What a wonderful blog Christina – trully enjoyed the telling of Gramma Elliott’s tin’s and your dad’s love of the Christmas Cake I’m sure you will enjoy your tins for a long time – Aunt Judi
Thanks Aunt Judi. 🙂
I’ll be trying your recipe next year – great post 🙂
Thanks Milli! I wish I’d had a chance to get the post written earlier in the year so that people could have made it for their families this year. Oh well. C’est la vie.
My mom kept up the Christmas cake and plum pudding tradition over the years, even though it took many years for us kids to learn to love them. My dad still hasn’t caught on, but today, I can’t imagine a Christmas without them. It’s so special that you are reviving that tradition in your family! I hope you will show us a cut slice of the cake on Instagram when you finally dig in. I’d love to see the inside 🙂
I will be sure to show a pic of my dad enjoying the Christmas cake. My aunts make plum pudding still but I’m not sure my dad likes it because it is so sweet with the sauce we put on it. I do love the richness of a plum pudding and haven’t had it in years. Next year I will make Grandma’s recipe. My Aunt Donna sent it to me last year but I haven’t made it yet.
Christina, this is such a wonderful post. I love the beautiful nostalgia and respect for family traditions evident throughout it. Thank you for sharing that photo of your Grandmother’s beautiful and much-loved pans.
Christmas cake was not part of my family tradition, but I do like to make it every couple of years, despite the fact that my family turn their noses up at it. You’re right about how the aromas wafting through the house from the spices and fruits just sing ‘Christmas.’ And, I’m one of those apparently rare people who actually enjoy a slice of Christmas cake. I bathe mine in dark rum, by the way.
Your family is lucky that you are building those traditions for them, and they will be so important to them (whether or not you buy a few things at the store; that doesn’t matter). One year when my son was perhaps around 12, I announced that I wasn’t going to cook a traditional holiday meal, and he looked so crestfallen. It was then that I realized how much the traditions meant to the kids, even if they didn’t always express it. My daughter speaks now about how she appreciates all the effort I put into making the holidays special for them. It’s gratifying to know I’ve helped create such a warm glow of memories for those I affectionately call ‘the offspring.’
Merry Christmas!
Thanks so much Marlene. Reading your comment came at the perfect time because my 5 year old was acting up and I was feeling as though my efforts to create a special Christmas get wasted. I will push forward and keep trying to make Christmas special with new traditions and old mixed together. I’m pretty sure that there will be a tradition some years of buying cookies and other treats when life gets a little hectic. 🙂
I inherited my grandmother’s fruit cake recipe and tins as well, and many times in late fall, I helped with the shopping and the ritual of preparing the cake. I never liked it as a child or young adult, but have acquired a taste over the years and love the tradition.
Thanks for sharing your family recipe!
Just warmed my heart after reading your Blog on your Gramma Elliott. What a wonderful tribute. Talk about a labour of love for a special Christmas gift you give to your Father.
We know how he has tweeked it with rum.
We have found memories of our Mom making Christmas Fruit cake and Christmas Pudding.
The smell in the home was divine. Just think she cooked it in the oven of wooding burning oven.
We are so pleased you are carrying on this tradition pus making some of your own for your little family
We are so proud of you and for your Dad to encourage you to keep this gift of love on going !
Kudos keep it going girl !