Learn How to Make Cake for Christmas: 4 Recipes for Christmas Cakes and 5 Decor Ideas That Will Warm Everyone's Heart (2020)

Ingredients for Spiced Chocolate Cake

• One cup plus one tablespoon of all purpose flour
• 100 grams of light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of mixed spices
• 120 ml of full-fat milk
• 60 ml of vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder and
• 4 table spoons of chocolate powder

• 200 grams of light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon of mixed spice
• 6 teaspoons of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 500 ml of boiling water and
• 350ml of heavy whipped cream

Steps to Make the Cake

• Step 1: Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius or 428 degrees Fahrenheit and put a baking sheet on the shelf. Begin making the sponge by putting the flour, brown sugar, chocolate powder, baking powder, ground ginger, mixed spice, milk, oil and egg in a wide bowl and use a mingling stick to mix these ingredients.


• Step 2: Pour the mixture inside a greased, round baking dish that could be around 23 cm in diameter and 6 cm deep and set the dish aside.


• Step 3: For the topping side, get a small bowl and mix the brown sugar, ground ginger and mixed spice and sprinkle over the batter that was set aside in its baking dish. Gently dot the butter on top and pour boiling water over the mixture.


• Step 4: Place the dish on to the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. When ready, wait for the cake to stand for 10 minutes before serving and ensure that you scoop out the sauce beneath the sponge in the dish.


• Step 5: Serve to 6 or 8 people with the whipped cream on top.

Ingredients for Moist Fruit Cake

• 500 g of all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons of baking powder
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 200 g of sugar
• 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
• 4 drops of sweet almond extract
• 1 tablespoon of rum
• Half a tablespoon of ground cardamom
• Half a tablespoon of ground nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 175 grams of butter
• 100 grams of dried currants
• 50 grams of candied ginger or orange peel
• Zest of 1 orange
• 250 quark (or sour cream/ cream cheese) and
• 50 grams of ground almonds

For the icing, use the following:

• 50 grams of butter
• 50 grams of powdered sugar

Steps to Make the Moist Fruit Cake

• Step 1: Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, almond meal, cardamom and nutmeg in a processor and whiz it. Add in chilled grated butter and process until you get breadcrumbs formed.


• Step 2: Get a medium sized bowl and whisk together quark, eggs, almond extract and rum. Add wet ingredients to flour mix, and stir together until all the dry ingredients are moistened and combine together in to a dough ball that is sticky and workable.


• Step 3: Knead on well-floured work surface, putting extra flour until it forms a good, soft, smooth and not so sticky dough.


• Step 4: Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. Bake for 45 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius and then for more 15 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius.

Ingredients for Traditional Irish Christmas Cake

• 450 g sultans
• 225 g currants
• 100 g glace (candied) cherries, halved or whole, not chopped
• 50 g mixed candied peel, finely chopped
• A half tablespoon of ground mixed spice or pudding spice
• Half teaspoon cinnamon
• Half tsp vanilla essence
• Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
• Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
• 1 large or 2 small apples, finely grated
• 100 g slivered almonds
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 4 tablespoons of Irish Whisky
• 280 g of Irish butter
• 225 g soft brown sugar
• 5 eggs
• 280 g plain (all-purpose) flour
• 50 g ground almonds
• Half teaspoon of salt

• 2 large mixing bowls
• An electric mixer
• A 9" round or 8" square cake tin that has straight sides
• Greaseproof paper, brown paper and string

It will take you up to 3 days to bake and finish making the traditional Irish Christmas Cake.

Making the Irish Christmas Cake

Day 1

• Prepare the fruits. A night before baking the cake, put all the ingredients down inclusive of whiskey into a bowl and mix well. In an overnight, cover and leave the fruit to soak in the whiskey and fruit juice. Now and again lift the cover to relish the amazing smell. Pre-soaking adds immensely to the moistness of the finished cake.
• When preparing the cake tin, carefully first line the tin with silicone or grease-proof paper that is smeared with butter and extend the paper a little over the top of the cake tin. Afterwards, fold a length of brown paper to have of paper with several thick layers. Around the outside of the tin, wrap this paper and tightly tie it securely in place with a string. Your tin should be almost invisibly wrapped up.
• Cut an extra piece of silicone paper, fold it into two and cut out a square or circle about the size of your cake tin. In the double sheet centre, make 2 cuts in the shape of a cross and set this and the tin aside for the next day.

Day 2

• Pre-heat your oven to 300 degrees Celsius and 280 degrees Celsius for fan ovens. A long slow cook does not let the fruit burn. Add butter and sugar into a bowl and whisk with a mixer till a pale color arises. Add and mix one egg at a time to avoid curdling of the mixture. In the event of curdling, simply add a dessert spoonful or two of flour, mix that in and then add a spoonful of flour with each subsequent egg. Mix the ground almonds, flour and salt together and fold in to the butter/sugar/egg mix without using a mixer. Add the fruit and mix up everything by your hands or even a wooden spoon and the resulting mixture should be thick and quite sticky.
• Spoon the mix in to the lined cake tin, smoothing the batter out as you go. Once it is all in, use a large metal spoon that is dipped in cold water to smooth the surface so that around the edges of the tin, the mix is slightly higher than it is in the centre.
• Tuck the square of silicone paper with the cross shaped cut in it loosely over the cake top to stop the cake from over browning.
• Put the cake in to an oven for 3 and a half hours. Check for cake readiness by inserting a metal skewer in to the cake center. In case the skewer is dry, then the cake is ready. For a half cooked cake, bake it for 30 more minutes.
• When the cake is done, set it aside to cool completely in the tin until the next day before removing it.

Day 3

• Carefully remove the cake from the tin by letting a palette knife in between the cake tin and paper lining paper off the cake. Now, turn the cake upside down and pierce it in 5 to 6 places using a thick skewer. Pour half a teaspoon of whiskey in to each hole. Repeat the cake feeding process every week to 10 days towards Christmas.


• Wrap the cake completely and fairly tightly with silicone or grease proof paper held by an elastic string and put the cake in an air tight tin.

Use Marzipan as Icing on the Cake

• Marzipan icing is added about a week before Christmas. You can either buy the marzipan or make it yourself. This is the recipe for making marzipan icing.

Ingredients:

• 300 g castor caster sugar
• 100 g icing sugar
• 500 g ground almonds
• 2 medium or large eggs
• One orange
• A few drops of almond essence and
• A little apricot jam

Steps to make marzipan:

• Making marzipan icing is a simple process. Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and beat the eggs. Add orange juice to the eggs and the almond essence if you so like. Mix everything altogether till it is very stiff and quite hard to bring together and can make a firm ball. Warm a little apricot jam and brush over the cake top so that the icing sticks to the cake. Pull off lumps of icing about the size of an egg and push them flat with your fingers to cover the cake top and sides. Leave to dry for 2 days before adding the final layer of icing.

Traditional Irish Plum Cake

Ingredients

• 250 g of refined flour
• 150 g unsalted butter
• 150 g brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon
• 30 g of almond
• 100 g of prunes
• 30 g of walnuts
• 5 drops of vanilla essence
• A quarter cup of milk
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder

Steps to make plum cake

• Step 1: Sieve the flour and baking powder together and set aside. In another bowl, mix the brown sugar and butter until you dissolve the sugar completely. Beat the cake mixture till light and keep adding the eggs one by one in the mixture. Gradually add the flour to the mixture in small bits and keep stirring to obtain a smooth mixture. Add the milk and vanilla essence and mix well. Also add cinnamon powder and blend well. Leave the batter untouched for 10 minutes.


• Step 2: In the meantime, finely chop the nuts and prunes and mix some of them in the batter and beat them well once again. Reserve some nuts to put on top of the cake. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes and prepare a baking tray by lining it with butter paper. Grease the tray with oil or butter and dust some flour. Add in the butter in the tin.


• Step 3: Bake at a temperature of 180 degrees for 1 hour. Insert a fine knife to check for the readiness of your cake. If the fine knife comes out clean, take out the cake and place it to cool on a wire rack. After cooling your cake is ready for serving. Serve slices of the cake with vanilla ice-cream.

• For that mini festive cake treat for your guests, bake the Christmas cake in a loaf tin and slice it in proportions to be served with tea.
• Make extra Christmas cakes so that they can be served to your vistors who come to celebrate Christmas holidays with you.
• Make small sized customised cakes with individual names written on top so that you surprise your guests to cakes with their names on .
• Ensure to bake extra cakes so that your spouse takes a piece of cake to work and share it with the workmates.

• Use little marzipan fruits to decorate your Christmas cake and make it more attractive.
• Apply ribbons and silver balls on the cake so that they bring color and life to a Christmas celebration.
• Have it in mind to spread the cake with some apricot jam before you marzipan it to enable the marzipan stick on the cake.
• You can cut out little marzipan stars and simply brush them with edible gold.