{"id":2400,"date":"2014-12-01T06:05:57","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T06:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/?page_id=2400"},"modified":"2015-06-20T05:51:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T05:51:23","slug":"christmas-cake","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/?page_id=2400","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Cake"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n\"Christmas<\/a> \r\n

This is a delicious moist fruit cake adapted especially for Christmas with the addition of dried cranberries and brandy. It is iced traditionally and decorated with Christmas ornaments.<\/p>\r\n

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Ingredients<\/h3>\r\n

For the cake:<\/h6>\r\n200g sultanas\u2028<\/br>\r\n100g raisins<\/br>\r\n\u2028100g cranberries<\/br>\r\n200g glace cherries halved<\/br>\r\n\u202850g chopped walnuts<\/br>\r\n\u202850g mixed peel<\/br>\r\n\u2028Zest of 1 orange<\/br>\r\n\u2028Zest of 1 lemon<\/br>\r\n3 tbsp orange juice\u2028<\/br>\r\n2 tbsp brandy<\/br>\r\n125g butter or soft margarine<\/br>\r\n150g light soft brown sugar<\/br>\r\n3 medium eggs<\/br>\r\n250g self raising flour<\/br>\u2028\r\n1 tsp mixed spice\u2028<\/br>\r\n1 tsp ground ginger<\/br>\r\n\u20281 tsp ground nutmeg<\/br>\r\n\u20281 tsp cinnamon<\/br>\r\n1 tsp baking powder<\/br>\r\n\u20281\/2 tsp baking soda\r\n\r\n
For the covering<\/h6>\r\n3 tbsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved<\/br>\r\n675g\/1lb 8oz marzipan\r\n\r\n
For the royal icing<\/h6>\r\n3 free-range eggs, whites only<\/br>\r\n675g\/1\u00bdlb icing sugar, sifted<\/br>\r\n3 tsp lemon juice<\/br>\r\n1\u00bd tsp glycerine to stop the icing from hardening completely.\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n
\r\n

Method<\/h3>\r\n1. Grate the lemon and orange for the zest, put aside. Squeeze the orange for the juice and soak the fruit in the orange juice and brandy.<\/br>\r\n2. Prepare a cake tin by greasing and flouring it.<\/br>\r\n3. Sift flour with spice, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, baking powder and soda.<\/br>\r\n4. Cream the butter with sugar.<\/br>\r\n5. Beat in whole eggs, one at a time adding tablespoon of sifted dry ingredients with \u2028each egg.<\/br>\r\n6. Stir in dried fruit, nuts, cherries, candied peel and zest.<\/br>\r\n\u20287. Fold in the sifted flour and spices.<\/br>\r\n8. Transfer to a prepared tin and smooth top with knife.<\/br>\r\n\u20289. Bake in centre of oven Gas mark 4 for 1hr and 20 minutes covering with foil after 40 minutes.<\/br>\r\n10. Leave in tin for 15 min. Turn out onto a wire cooling rack.\u2028<\/br>\r\n\r\n

Covering the Cake<\/h3>\r\nPlace the cake on a cake dish or cake board. Thinly spread the warmed apricot jam over the whole surface of the cake. Shape the marzipan into a ball with your hands, then roll it out flat to a size that will cover the cake completely, top and sides. Lift the marzipan with the aid of a rolling pin, cover the cake and press the marzipan gently but firmly to the surface. Trim any side pieces.\r\n\r\n

Icing the Cake<\/h3>\r\n1. Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until they become frothy. Mix in the sifted icing sugar a tablespoonful at a time. You can do this with a hand-held electric whisk, but keep the speed low.<\/br>\r\n2. Stir in the lemon juice and glycerine and beat the icing until it is very stiff and white and stands up in peaks.<\/br>\r\n3. Place all the icing onto the top of the cake. Spread evenly over the top and sides of the cake with a palette knife. For a snow-peak effect, use a smaller palette knife to rough up the icing.<\/br>\r\n4. Leave the cake loosely covered overnight for the icing to harden a little, but place any ornaments onto the icing so that they make an impression. This is so that you can remove them before storing the cake, leaving you 'markers' to re-attach later. Wrap or store the cake in an airtight container in a cool place until needed. \r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a delicious moist fruit cake adapted especially for Christmas with the addition of dried cranberries and brandy. It is iced traditionally and decorated with Christmas ornaments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2400","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2400"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2634,"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2400\/revisions\/2634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhootonphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}