This year I didn’t do a traditional Christmas cake, instead trying out a simple mincemeat –based cake from Mary Berry’s new book “100 cakes and bakes”. It is called – somewhat unimaginatively – Fast Mincemeat Christmas Cake. It is exactly that and is moist and delicious.
You need a deep 20cm round cake tin, lined and greased.
Simply beat together 150g Stork; 150g light soft brown sugar; 2 large eggs; 225g SR flour; 400g mincemeat (I used my home-made, fat-free version with lots of dried cranberries); 175g currents and 50g flaked almonds. That’s it. I used my lovely Kenwood mixer but a hand mixer would be fine.
Then bake at 160 deg C – 140 deg in a fan oven – until done. I found it took just over an hour.
Yesterday I needed to use up some eggs so made a double batch of a pumpkin-based cake based on the New Zealand Fruit Cake from Jill Norman’s “New Penguin Cookery Book”. I used Libby’s solid-pack tinned pumpkin which I can now buy once again thanks to Amazon. Waitrose and Sainsbury’s sadly stopped stocking it a while back.
This quantity makes two 2lb loaf cakes and one 1lb cake. I popped them in the freezer for when it is my turn to bring cake to the office.
Simply beat together 360g Stork; 360g caster sugar; 4 eggs; 500g SR flour; a whole 425g tin of pumpkin; 2 teaspoons of ground cardamom using a stand or hand electric mixer. Then add 450g mixed dried fruit. I used sultanas, raisons, cranberries, glace cherries and mixed peel.
Spoon into the prepared tins and bake at 160 deg C for an hour for the big cakes and a few minutes less for the smaller size.
These cakes should be eaten quickly as the pumpkin makes them quite soft and somewhat prone to go off.
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