Christmas Cake Recipes By Nigella Lawson

Grateful though I am to Hazel Hook for giving me her foundation-stone recipe for a traditional Christmas cake, with its all-important table for weights, measures and tin sizes, so many Christmasses ago, I have departed somewhat from her strictures.

To be honest, I don't always get it together to make a traditional Christmas cake (which needs a bit of time to stand and mellow to be as good as it can be) so I tend to rustle up either the Incredibly Easy Chocolate or Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake (or both) at the last minute. But a traditionally iced and comfortingly decorative Christmas cake is a lovely thing, and if efficiency allows, should be embraced.

This version builds on the Time-Honoured Christmas Cake of earlier books, but cuts down on varieties of dried fruits, augments alcohol (bourbon for preference, but brandy or sherry will also do), and adds ground almonds and chopped pecans. It bakes well, and can be iced beautifully, and is a satisfying way to get Christmas really going in the kitchen.

Chocolate Fruit Cake (by Nigella)

Place all the dried fruit in a saucepan, and add the bourbon or brandy. Bring to the boil, then take it off the heat, covering once cooled, and let it steep overnight, covered. And make sure you take your eggs and butter out of the fridge so that they will be at room temperature for the making of the cake tomorrow.

The next day, preheat your oven to 150C / gas mark 2, and prepare your tin, (see below). Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the grated lemon zest.

Sift the dry ingredients together, then mix the soaked fruit alternately with the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture, combining thoroughly. Fold in the chopped pecans.

Fabulous Christmas Cake Recipes From Traditional, To Fun & Inspiring

Put the cake mix into the prepared tin and bake in the oven, following the table opposite, or until a cake-tester or skewer inserted into the cake comes out cleanish.

When the cake is cooked, brush with a couple of extra tablespoons of bourbon or brandy or other liqueur of your choice. Wrap immediately in its tin – using a double-thickness of tin foil – as this will trap the heat and form steam, which in turn will keep the cake soft on top.

When it's completely cold, remove the cake from the tin and rewrap in foil, storing, preferably in an airtight tin or Tupperware, for at least 3 weeks to improve the flavour. And see the Make Ahead tip, too.

Chocolate Fruit Cake

To prepare your tin, line the sides and bottom of a deep, round, loose-bottomed cake tin with a double layer of greaseproof paper or baking parchment. The paper should come up a good 10cm higher than the sides of the tin; think of a lining that's about twice as deep as the tin. Cut out 2 circles of paper, and 2 very long rectangles that will fit along the sides of the tin and rise up above it like a top hat. Before you put the 2 rectangular pieces in the tin, fold one long side of each piece in towards the centre by about 2cm, as if turning up a hem, then take some scissors and snip into this hem, at approx. 2cm intervals, as if making a rough frill.

Grease the tin, lay one paper circle on the bottom and get one of your long pieces and fit it down one side, with the frilly edge along the bottom, then press down that edge so it sits flat on the circle and holds it in place. Press the paper well into the sides, and repeat with the second rectangular piece. Now place the second circle on top of the 2 pressed down frilly edges, to help hold the pieces around the edge in place.

If you're making a big cake, it's worth wrapping the outside of the tin with a double layer of brown paper (also coming up about 10cm above the rim of the tin) but I don't bother if I'm making a normal-sized one (20cm–23cm).

Ingredient Fruit Cake

Make the cake up to 6 weeks ahead and wrap in a double layer of greaseproof paper and then a double layer of foil. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. (You could add a bit more bourbon or brandy over this storage time to feed the cake and keep moist.)

Make the cake and wrap as above. Freeze for up to 1 year. To thaw, unwrap the cake and thaw overnight at room temperature. Rewrap and store as above until needed.

• This recipe is taken from Nigella Christmas by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, £25). ©Nigella Lawson 2008. Order a copy for £17 from the Guardian bookshop (where all Nigella's books are on offer for Christmas 2011) or download the ebook

Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities

Today in pictures BBC Sports Personality of the Year – in pictures Bradley Wiggins capped his remarkable sporting year by taking home the big prize at the ceremony in London Dinner, dusk and dancing Russians: my best winter shot A glass of wine with a rough sleeper, Santa in trunks, a thousand partying Muscovites … in a My Best Shot special, top photographers pick the image that sums up winter for them Monkey adopts kitten – in pictures Kimon, an eight-year-old pet female long-tailed monkey, treats a kitten as her baby in Bintan Island, IndonesiaFor this year's Christmas cake, I've gone for a classic - Nigella Lawson's Christmas Cake. It's the basic one that appears in almost all her books, unphotographed, with weights and measurements for 3 different sized cakes. I often think it's just includedfor the sake of completeness rather than any excitement on Nigella's part. Perhaps not quite as dazzling as hermarzipan fruit cake, or herchocolate fruit cake, but a good reliable cake nonetheless.

She does tweak the recipe from book to book, and in case you're interested, I used the recipe from Nigella Christmas, in an 18cm round tin. It's quite similar to previous versions, except that it contains less varieties of dried fruits, more alcohol (wahey!) and some almond meal.As y'all will have realised by now, I don't usually reprint recipes, (they're not mine to share, so please stop asking me guys!), but if you want to have a go at it, the original Christmas cake recipe is at thiswebsite. Love the incredible mid-90's design, complete with pale blue animated background, hehe!

The aroma was heavenly! I've been feeding the cake with brandy and we'll be having it as dessert for our Christmas dinner this year. So excited to try it!

Nigella's Chocolate Fruit Cake Recipe

You'll see it's quite a plain looking cake, and I wasn't able to get it completely smooth. (You can see all the little cracks on top and on the sides.) But do you know what? This means that this year, yes, I will finally be icing my Christmas cake. I'll be doing the whole shebang - marzipan and rolled white fondant and any little extra decorations that I fancy. I haven't done a proper fondant icing before, so I hope it turns out well. For those of you who are more experienced in these matters than I am, any tips for a spectacular Christmas cake? What types of decorations do you like?