Xmas Cake recipe.

Ingredients
Ideally make this cake at leat minimum time, of 3 weeks before Xmas. It is not a eat straight away cake too crumbly. The longer it is left the better it is
Orange juice or apple juice can be subsituted for the alcohol. Likewise nuts can be omitted or other varieties used. This is heavy on the fruit hence moist cake.

Cake un-iced keeps longer and keep topped up with alcohol of choice.

175g raisins
350g glace cherries, rinsed, thoroughly dried and quartered
500g currants
350g sultanas
150/200 ml sherry, plus extra for feeding or juice
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
250g butter, softened
250g light muscovado sugar
4 eggs room temperature.
1 tbsp black treacle
75g blanched almonds, chopped omit or change to walnuts or pecans,
75g self-raising flour
175g plain flour
1½ tsp mixed spice

To finish and decorate:
About 3 tbsp apricot jam, sieved and warmed
Icing sugar
675g shop-bought almond paste
Packet royal icing mix to cover 23cm/9in cake

Method

Put all the dried fruit in a container, pour over the sherry and stir in the orange zest. Cover with a lid, and leave to soak for 3 days, stirring daily, 5 days maximum soaking only, or fuit goes mushy

Grease and line a 23cm (9in) deep round tin with a double/Treble layer of greased greaseproof paper If your oven likes to burn thing, mine does, then use plenty of greaseproof paper or thicker greasproof paper to prevent it catching. Burnt cake like this tastes vile. I know I burnt mine first time round after forgetting to put the timer back on.

Preheat the oven to 140ºC/Fan 120ºC/Gas Mark 1.

Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and almonds into a very large bowl and beat well. Add the flours and mixed spice and mix thoroughly until blended. Stir in the soaked fruit. 

Spoon into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.

Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 4-4½ hours or until the cake feels firm to the touch and is a rich golden brown. Check after 2 hours, ESSENTIAL CHECK AFTER 2 hours. Can take the full time to cook. and, if the cake is a perfect colour, cover with foil to prevetn burning. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Don't rely on that as the fruit is so packed in you can stab it instead of the cake. It should feel firm to the touch. 

Leave the cake to cool in the tin.

When cool, pierce the cake at intervals with a fine skewer and feed with a little extra sherry. 

Wrap the completely cold cake in a double layer of greaseproof paper and again in foil and store in a cool place for up to 3 months, feeding at intervals with more sherry. (Don't remove the lining paper when storing as this helps to keep the cake moist.) Store cake undecorated

Decorate on Christmas eve/ Christmas day with almond paste and royal icing. As the decorating will go off before the cake does.

You could also freeze the cake before decorating, for up to 3 months; defrost at room temperature.