My Jamaican Christmas Cake

Yay! It worked!

This was a real experiment as I had no idea how it would turn out, but I was so pleased with the results. The cake was rich, heavy and moist - it tasted just how I remembered it as a kid! Felt really nice, sort of comfort memory food. I will definitely make it again! I think it will become another new tradition hehe. I had enough mixture to make one big cake, and two mini cakes which I gave to friends.

Recipe:

Soaked fruit from

http://sherrytruffle.blogspot.com/2008/11/rum-and-raisins.html


Batter:

9 oz butter
5 eggs
1 tsp Madagascan vanilla extract
9oz dark brown sugar (I used vergoise brune)
9 oz self-raising flour
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of salt
2oz chopped pecan nuts

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Add the beaten eggs.
Sieve the flour, salt and spices over the butter/eggy mixture, and stir well to combine.
Add the soaked fruit and pecan nuts. Stir thoroughly.

Pour the mixture into a double-lined tin, and bake at 140 degrees for 3 hours, then cover the cake with double greaseproof paper and bake for another hour.

Allow the cake to cool completely, then wrap in greaseproof paper and foil until it needs to be marzipaned and iced.

I used Delia's recipe for the Almond Icing - it was surprisingly easy and really delicious too!
And also used her Fondant Icing recipe as well, and kept the leftovers to make decorations.

Cool Yule

I rolled out my traditional yule log again this Christmas - well, a new tradition for me really... I discovered this recipe 3 years ago and it was voted "Favourite Yule Log Ever" by the kiddies, so have stuck with it ever since! It's a Joconde base, brushed with sugar syrup and rum, and filled and iced with French chocolate buttercream, dusted with icing-sugar snow and sprinkled with edible white snowflake-like sprinkles. The kiddies always help decorate the yule log, so this year we cut out some ivy leaves, and D made a herd of tie-dye green rhinos out of the leftover icing hehe

I always make two as they disappear pretty quickly, and it's not much more work. This year I popped the extra Joconde sponge and the extra buttercream in the freezer for a week, and then defrosted and assembled it for our New Year's Eve party.