Christmas Cake - Christmas Preperation

No British Christmas is complete without a classic Christmas Cake.

A Christmas cake can be made 2 months before Christmas for it to mature and to be fed at regular intervals with brandy. If you are making it later, don't worry, it will still taste good, but leaving it to moisten over the months helps with the texture.

Christmas cake recipe may look complicated but we are going to break it down for you. You'll find it is easy if you prepare and weigh all the ingredients and line the tin before you start.

So, to prepare, heat the oven to 150C or Gas mark 2, grease a 20cm round or an 18cm square cake tin and line the bottom and sides with baking parchment.

And then, sieve the flour, salt, mixed spice and cinnamon into a bowl.Cream the butter and the sugar in another mixing bowl and then mix in the treacle, marmalade and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.

Introduce the eggs slowly into the mixture while mixing and adding a tablespoon of the flour mixture with the last pour of eggs. Then add the remaining flour mixture and fold until it has all combineded well. And then, mix in the dried fruit, mixed peel, glace cherries and the almonds

Note: If you have time, you can also soak the dried mixed fruits the night before in a little extra brandy and proceed with the recipe next day. Creates an even more moist cake

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and try to make it slightly hollow in the middle.

Bake it for 3 hours, then remove it and wait for it to cool, around 15 minutes should be fine.

Once cool, poke wholes through the cake with a skewer and pour 3 to 4 tablespoons of Brady through. Store the cake in a air tight container so that no brandy can escape and leave it to soak through the cake.

For a richer, more moist cake, you could always pour more brandy onto the cake every week until you are ready to ice an decorate your cake.