Nigella's Small Christmas Fruit Cake

Right, with less than 10 days to Christmas I've just now decided to bake a Christmas cake. What can I say? Just that Late Kate's my middle name.

I actually thought of skipping making a fruit cake this Christmas. But I was scrolling through Nigella's Christmas Cookbook yesterday and came across a couple of her Christmas cakes that she turned out, all while looking extremely glamorous. I think that was just the push I needed to get started. 

I've combined Nigella's Traditional Christmas Cake recipe (with dried fruit, nuts, booze and spices) with her self-professed seductive Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruit cake (which uses prunes for moistness and cocoa powder for color) and decorated it like a Dundee Cake. 

My Small Christmas Cake
Adapted from Nigella's Christmas Cookbook, I combined her Traditional Christmas Cake recipe with her Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruit Cake recipe

Quick and Easy Small Christmas Fruit Cake

I quick soaked the fruits and nuts yesterday after heating them in bourbon. And today, I baked this lovely cake. Very quickly and very easily with much less time and effort than I would usually spend baking my traditional Big Granny's Plum Cake.

I've halved the proportions, so this recipe makes a little round cake that is only about 1.5 inches in height. Maybe next time I'll try it in a loaf tin. But for now, I think this torte looking cake would be lovely sliced into triangles and served with a Cointreau Cream on Christmas Day. 

It looks and smells so wonderful. But I have to wait until Christmas to cut it. So, come back here in 10 days and I'll tell you how just how delicious it was.

Nigella's Small Christmas Fruit Cake

Bakes a small 7inch round, low cake

Ingredients:

☐310g chopped dried fruit and nuts (prunes, walnuts, raisins, craisins)
☐100ml bourbon
☐75g butter
☐45g brown sugar
☐50ml caramelized brown sugar
☐1 large egg
☐Grated zest of 1 clementine or lemon
☐75g flour sifted
☐1tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
☐Spice powder (1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp each of clove, nutmeg and ginger powder)
☐1/2 tsp almond essence
☐1/2 tsp vanilla essence
☐35g ground almonds
☐1tsp baking powder
☐Blanched or sliced almonds for decoration

Step by Step Instructions

1. Place all chopped dried fruit and nuts in a saucepan. Pour in the bourbon and heat covered. Before it comes to a boil, remove from heat and leave covered overnight
2. The next day, preheat oven to 250°C. Prepare small round baking tin.
3. Sift baking powder and flour and set aside. 
4. Cream softened butter and sugar. Add grated zest.
5. Add the egg and beat. Then add the caramelized brown sugar treacle, vanilla and almond extract and continue to beat.
6. Sift the cocoa powder into the mixture, add the spices and combine.
7. Add a spoonful of sifted flour to the dried fruit and nut mixture before spooning in batches into the batter. Mix well.
8. Add the almond flour.
9. Add the sifted flour in batches and combine. 
10. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin. Smooth top lightly and then arrange blanched almonds in concentric circles starting from the center.
11. Place in 250°C over and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean. 
12. Wrap cooled cake in foil and store in an airtight container. Feed the cake with more alcohol if you like.

Cointreau Cream

Whisk 250ml double cream until softly whipped, whisking in about 45ml of Cointreau) at the end. Can substitute Cointreau with Eggnog, Triple sec or Grand Marnier.