Made with my classicChristmas cake batter, the rich fruit cake is moist and velvety.
Mini Christmas Cakes
Here are the Mini Christmas Cakes I promised in last weeksHoliday Gift Guide!!
This is just my classicChristmas Cakeconverted into mini form.
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The cake is beautifully moist, rich with dried fruit, perfumed with Christmas spices.
Dense, but soft pudding-like, not like a brick as many store bought ones are.
So you dont need to fuss to work around frosting or add a sauce for serving.
Also the option to add a Christmas pudding drippy glaze!
1.SOAKED DRIED FRUIT(booze optional)
Heres what you need for the Soaked Dried Fruit.
Use any dried fruit you want As long as it weighs 855g / 30 oz in total.
The selection above is the mix I like!
Mixed peelis a store bought mix of dried, crystallised (ie sugared) lemon and orange peel.
Usually it comes pre chopped I like to chop it a bit finer.
I do not know how much fresh peel to substitute this for.
2.CHRISTMAS CAKE BATTER
And heres what you need for the cake batter part.
The cake has very little baking powder because its quite a dense cake with a pudding-like texture.
Molasses / golden syrup adds to the richness of flavour and colour of cake.
Either is fine I interchange year on year.
Walnuts sub with any nuts of choice, or leave it out completely.
Oil AND butter oil is what gives this cake a superb moistness.
Butter is for flavour!
Eggs This is what makes the cake hold together rather than being crumbly.
Flour Just regular plain / all-purpose flour.
Spices All spice, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Classic Christmas cake flavours!
you’ve got the option to also use a muffin tin lined with silver foil patties.
So much faster and just as effective!
Soak fruit Microwave the dried fruit with the juice/brand for 1 1/2 minutes or until hot.
Batter Beat the butter and sugar for 1 minute until light and fluffy.
Then beat in the oil and molasses, then the salt, spices and baking powder.
Then beat in the eggs one at a time, beating until just incorporated.
Mix in the flourusing a wooden spoon.
Pan Pour the batter into a lined 20cm / 8 pan.
It will fill it right to the top and thats fine, the cake barely rises.
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As noted above, its a dense cake but its not brick-like!
Its still distinctly cakey.
To be specific, they are 6.5cm / 2 1/2 squares that are 4.5cm / 1.8 tall.
As noted above, feel free to use different size pans.
Cutting Trim the edges (to make the sides neat).
Then cut the cake into pieces as desired.
I do 9 squares.
Trim surface The surface of the cake is ever so slightly domed.
Though tying ribbon around the cake really is an easy way to make them even more gift-worthy.
Easy to gift wrap no need to find specific size jars of gift bags.
Just wrap in cellophane and tie with ribbon.
Long shelf life This one is important to me!
A few years ago I did cookies but they just dont have a great shelf life.
Its rare for any cookie to truly remain in top-notch fresh form beyond 2 days.
Wheres the Christmas Cake?
Ive kept mine in the fridge for a month and it was still like freshly made.
How good is that!
Also, spoiler alert for my friends youre all getting Mini Christmas Cakes this year.
