Amaretto Christmas cake (On the cheap)

ProudMumMaggie

So I've been looking for a HM Christmas cake to make this year but have been put off by how expensive they are to make at home, I.e the price of dried fruits and brandy!
So after some internet trawling I found this!
Amaretto Christmas cake

I am planning to substitute the currants, sultanas, dried figs and mixed peel for 700g of Asda Smart Price Dried Mixed Fruit. I got glace cherries fairly cheap from an Asian food store so I can just use them. For the Amaretto I am going to get the Aldi Belucci Amaretto, 50cl for £4.99. For butter I'm going to use Stork. I have 2 bags of caster sugar already in the cupboard so think I might use that instead of going out to buy demerera!
250g currants
250g sultanas
100g dried figs, chopped
100g mixed peel
100g glac! cherries, halved
125ml amaretto, plus extra to feed
125g soft butter
125g demerara sugar
4 eggs, beaten
130g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
pinch of salt
50g ground almonds
grated zest of 1 lemon
50g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
25g crystallised ginger, chopped
The crystallized ginger I will get at my next trip to Superasia. QUESTION anyone tried the Morrisons basics mixed spice?

Start by soaking the fruit in the alcohol. Place the dried fruit and mixed peel in a bowl, cover with the amaretto, and leave to soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 140C / gas mark 1. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition.

Sift the flour and baking powder into another bowl and then stir in the mixed spice, ground almonds and salt. Fold this into the butter and sugar mixture. Give the soaked fruits a good stir and add these, along with any remaining amaretto, the lemon zest, chopped almonds and ginger. Stir well.

Pour the mixture into the tin and smooth the surface. I appreciated Felicity’s tip of scooping out a small hollow in the middle of the mixture to prevent it doming during baking.

Bake for about an hour, before covering with foil and baking for another half an hour or so. The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.

With a skewer, poke some holes deep into the cake, and generously brush the surface with more amaretto. Remove the cake from the tin and with the baking parchment still in place, wrap in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight tin.

Feed again with amaretto every week until it’s time to ice the cake just before Christmas. I cheat at this stage and use a layer of shop-bought marzipan, followed by a layer of shop-bought royal icing. But if you’d like to make your own icing, I can recommend Delia Smith’s recipe. Sorry – I’ve never made my own marzipan, so wouldn’t know where to point you for that!

Polaria

Delia Online also gives a recipe for HM marzipan - they call it almond icing instead:

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/almond-icing.html

redfox

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VfM4meplse

Sounds delish! Since it turned a bit cooler I started thinking about gathering together my Chrimbo cake ingredients, want to do it egg-free this year.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Rite, away with this adventure.

BAH HUMBUG

ProudMumMaggie

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

Rite, away with this adventure.

BAH HUMBUG

Och cheer up, it's only 17 Thursday's until Christmas

Kim_kim

I'm sure the basic spice mix will be fine.
I'm no expert but I would use the Demerara sugar rather than the white though.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

ProudMumMaggie wrote: »

Och cheer up, it's only 17 Thursday's until Christmas

And wheN I walked in the middle east, that was the number of chopping days left to the festival of consumerism!

VfM4meplse

Kim_kim wrote: »

I'm sure the basic spice mix will be fine.
I'm no expert but I would use the Demerara sugar rather than the white though.

Me too. I'm a serial coffee drinker and always make sure I take the Demerara sugar sachets rather than white. Come annual cake time I have pounds of the stuff

ProudMumMaggie

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Me too. I'm a serial coffee drinker and always make sure I take the Demerara sugar sachets rather than white. Come annual cake time I have pounds of the stuff

Costa here I come!

Christmas doesn't need to be a consumerism affair, isn't that what MSE is for?

Floss

Kim_kim wrote: »

I'm sure the basic spice mix will be fine.
I'm no expert but I would use the Demerara sugar rather than the white though.

Basic spice mix is fine - but you won't get a dark cake unless you use demerara sugar.

What may push the price of your cake up is the marzipan & fondant icing to cover it, as these aren't cheap.