Old Fashioned Christmas Cake
or, how I got 14 pounds of Christmas cake from a 10 pound recipe.
My daughter Laura asked for a Christ
mas Cake. “Just like the one you used to make when I was a kid”. Great request, I like it, and I’ll send one out to my grown son Robert in Red Deer, and one to my daughter, Amber in Sechelt, BC. (My recipe makes a lot of cake.)
It’s a bit late, in the past I made this in October, but with a bit of booze, it will be fine. It’s also a good thing our local bulk food store was having a sale this weekend.
So off to the bulk store with my list I go. 6 cups of this, 6 cups of that, 3 of cherries, 2 of raisins, I sort of just measured and estimated as I shopped. $37 dollars later I had most of my ingredients.
The recipe has me dump all the fruit and nuts into a large bowl and toss in 2 cups of flour. I didn’t want any leftover fruit or nuts, so I just emptied each bag of raisins, cherries, walnuts and candied fruit right into the bowl. No measuring. After all, I sort of did that at the bulk store.
This mixing bowl is 18 inches across and it’s pretty well full.
Here’s my recipe, it’s delicious, my kids say so.
And, if you make it my way, you might get 14 pounds, too.
- 3 cups whole candied cherries
- 6 cups of candied fruit
- 2 cups of raisins
- 6 cups of walnut pieces
- 1 pound of butter, melted just to liquid
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 cups white sugar
- 8 large eggs
- 6 cups all purpose flour
- 2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
- 4 teaspoons salt
- 4 teaspoons allspice
- 2 teaspoons ground cloves
- 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
- 1/4 cup vanilla
- 2 cups cooled strong black tea
- Dump all the fruit and nuts into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with 2 cups of the flour and stir until mixed well.
- In another bowl, melt the butter, add the sugar, vanilla, then the eggs when the butter is cool enough. Beat it all together with a mixing spoon.
- In another fairly large bowl mix the remaining 4 cups of flour with the baking powder, salt and spices. Add the butter mixture and the tea and beat to make a smooth batter.
- Pour the batter over the fruit and mix well.
- Divide between loaf pans that have been either greased and floured, or, my way, lined with parchment paper.
- I fill them about 2/3 full.
- Bake at 275'F for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
- Test with a toothpick, when it comes out clean the cakes are done.
- Cool on racks, then wrap and store in a cool place.
- I wrap mine in cotton muslin that had been well washed, then I dribble rum over top and store in an airtight plastic container.
- This makes a lot of cake. You could easily halve the recipe.
6 Responses
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Yvette I would love to make these cakes but have a question
Can they be frozen? I also would halve the recipe as not everyone
in my family likes Christmas Cake – Hope you and your family have a lovely holiday season lol Sharon
Yes Sharon, these freeze well. Let them “ripen” in the fridge for about a week, dribbling some booze or fruit juice over them and wrapping well. Then freeze them. You can also use smaller loaf pans, mine are really big.
I was just wondering if you can use rum or brandy in this recipe???
Sure you can Alexis, sub it for the tea, yummy!
I made this recipe, I did the full recipe. I added one cup of strong tea and one cup of Brandy. I found that my cake tops to touch are hard and all cracked. I have not yet cut into them, waiting for them to cool.
Hi Brenda, fruit cake is baked early in the season so it can “ripen”. Wrap the cake(s) in cheesecloth or muslin and dribble booze over them before sealing in an airtight container and storing them for weeks.