I do not like fruit cake. I loathe it. If I’m at a wedding and they have fruit cake you can be sure I am not eating that there cake.
I know Christmas has come and gone but I did test a couple of cake recipes before Christmas. Let’s call this review a heads up for Christmas 2017 kind of thing 😉
The first cake I made was the Rich Christmas cake recipe on page 62. I actually made the cake in mid-November; I made it early because rich cakes need time to mature, and I wanted to make sure it was at its best when it was finally taste tested.
This cake contains the dried fruit mother lode. You need to plan ahead because the fruit does need to soak overnight in a mixture of rum and orange juice that has been boiled. I would also advise you to have a well ventilated kitchen because the mix smells so bad. Like really, really bad. Urgh, I’m having sensory flashbacks just writing about it.
Once the mix has soaked overnight you combine with the remaining ingredients. The cake is cooked at 150°C for four hours or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake. The cake is then left in the tin to cool. The cake is stored in a wrapping of brown paper and foil. I should also mention that this cake is so heavy. I have never met a cake so heavy, but then with the amount of fruit in it I shouldn’t really be surprised; but yeah it’s a heavy sucker.
I stored it in the darkest corner of the linen cupboard.
As I said earlier I am not a fan of Christmas cake; I can’t even pretend to like it, so I enlisted some people to try it for me. The general consensus is that it is a beautiful moist cake. It is better than a shop bought one and was very moreish but there was one issue that I could see coming from a mile off.
When I have made fruit cakes or buns or anything using dried fruits, currants in particular, I have made sure to sort through the fruit and remove any stems or little twigs that may have made it into the packet during manufacture. It’s really important to do 
because there is nothing worse than taking a mouthful of cake and finding a tree stuck between your teeth. As you know very well by now, I follow these instructions to the letter and so I went against my nature and refrained from doing it for this recipe. As a result a few stems got stuck in teeth during the taste test. The tasters said it didn’t really detract from the cake, but I know that I wouldn’t be happy to find them in something I was eating. So, when making this recipe or any that involve dried fruit, please give the fruit a quick going over to make sure there aren’t any extra bits.
The other thing with this recipe is at no point does it say to ice this cake. Christmas cake doesn’t have to be iced, and in fact a lot of people prefer them without icing, but I think if you are wanting the cake to have more of a “wow” factor it would be nice to ice it using a layer of almond icing and then a layer of royal icing.
So yeah, this cake is a winner. I can definitely see me making it again, and I can also see me not eating it again. Fruit cake *blurch*
The second recipe I made was the Ginger Ale Fruit Cake, also on page
62. This recipe also needs some forward planning, as the mix also needs to be soaked overnight. 
It’s a lighter cake and only takes three hours to cook. This cake was pleasant enough, but it didn’t have the same pizzazz as the other cake. It was just a little flat flavour wise. On maturing the flavour just got more “meh” rather than better.
The end vote was that this cake is okay but if you want to make a fruit cake for a special occasion you would be better to make the rich Christmas cake.
So, there you have it. No excuses you have plenty of time to plan your 2017 Christmas cake now 🙂
I hope you all had a fabulous and restful break and 2017 is your best year yet.
Until next time. Happy cooking! 🙂