Michelle Darmody: How to get started on festive baking and the recipe for my mother's Christmas cake

Make your cakes and mince now so they can mature over the coming weeks 

How to make a traditional Christmas cake.

It is a good time to start getting your Christmas baking in order, if you have not done so already. I generally make my cake and mince around now and leave them mature over the coming weeks.

Each year I use the same base recipe, that I have been using for years, but adapt it slightly. One year I made the mince with the addition of candied orange and some extra zest. It worked out beautifully. This year I kept my mince traditional but added a rich combination of ingredients. The muscovado sugar, pecan nuts and Amarena cherries all complement the dark rum. Amarena cherries can be found in Italian shops, in many supermarkets, you can also buy them online. They generally come preserved in a sweet syrup, which you can drain before chopping the cherries.

The recipe calls for the cake to be placed onto a bed of salt while baking. The mince recipe is slightly unusual in that you cook the dried fruit for a short amount of time to fatten them. It was created due to lack of storage space when I ran a commercial kitchen. The large jars and containers of mince would take up a lot of shelf space. This recipe allows you to make the mince a little nearer to Christmas, as it does not need to rest for as long to plump and soften.

I always use rum in the mince, but you can use whatever dark spirit you have. I also sprinkle a little more spirit over the cake a few times before Christmas. Best suited to the adults!

My Mother’s salt-baked Christmas cake

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

This recipe calls for the cake to be placed onto a bed of salt while it is baking. This acts as an insulator which helps to create an even, gentle bake.

Servings

12

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 4 hours 0 mins

Total Time

 4 hours 20 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• 220g mixed peel

• 280g golden raisins

• 270g golden sultanas

• 350g currants

• 250mls dark rum

• 220g muscovado sugar

• 220g soft butter

• 5 medium eggs, lightly beaten

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 2 tsp mixed cake spice

• 1 tsp nutmeg

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 275g plain flour, sieved

• 180g Amarena cherries washed, strained from the syrup and chopped

• Zest 3 oranges

• 120g mixed pecan nuts, finely chopped

• 2 medium-sized cooking apples, cored, peeled and grated

• ½ glass of sherry

Method

1. Put all fruit except cherries and grated apple into a bowl, add the rum, and leave to soak overnight.

2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gently beat in the eggs. Add a little of the flour if the mixture begins to curdle.

3. Mix the flour with spices and stir this into the mixture.

4. Fold in the soaked fruit, cherries, zest, nuts and grated apple. Stir in the sherry.

5. Line an 8-inch square tin with parchment. Cut a strip of brown (rather than printed) carboard that will fit around the four sides of the tin. Tie the rectangle of cardboard securely around the box with a piece of twine. Sit it on a tray of table salt and bake for 3 hours at 100 degrees and then for a further 1 hour at 140 degrees.

6. Allow it to cool in the tin. Once it is cool wrap the cake first in parchment then in tinfoil and store in a cool dark place until you want to ice it. I usually sprinkle it with alcohol every ten days or so until icing day.

Mincemeat

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

You will get just over 2 kg of mince from this recipe.

Preparation Time

 5 mins

Cooking Time

 32 mins

Total Time

 37 mins

Course

 Dessert

Ingredients

• 200g mixed peel

• 300g golden sultanas

• 200g currants

• 350g raisins

• 4 tsp mixed spice

• 2 tsp ground cloves

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp of ground cinnamon

• 2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

• 500g of almonds finely chopped

• 200mls of dark rum

• 2 large apples, peeled, cored and roughly grated

• Zest of 2 oranges, plus the juice of 4

• Zest and juice of 2 lemons

• 330g of dark muscovado sugar

• 200g of vegetable suet

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients except the muscovado sugar and suet in a large saucepan. Place over a low heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes or until the fruit has plumped up and most, but not all, of the liquid has evaporated.

2. Set aside to cool completely, then stir in the sugar and suet.

3. Sterilise your jars. Divide the mincemeat between the hot jars and set aside to cool. Store in a cool place until you are ready to make your mince pies. If you have any leftover mince it will last for up to 6 months.