Well its october, a great month to start and prepare to bake a rich christmas cake for friends and family. If your reading this and its now november/ EARLY December do not panic you still have time, but I would say you are pushing it if you have not got at least 3 weeks remaining to let the flavours mature.
Now it was only last year that I made my first ever christmas cake!!Naturally I was scared about how different it all was to a sponge cake!! especially when I read about “Feeding” it and storage, but if you follow this brillant recipe and instructions you will have a perfect cake in time to enjoy at christmas!!
The Recipe is from one of my mums favorite recpe books.. Be-Ro. Now the recipe is called a Rich Dundee Cake but it makes the best rich christmas cake i have ever tried!! This recipe is for a 9inch round tin or a 8inch square 
300 g (10 oz) butter
300 g (10 oz) soft brown sugar
5 medium eggs, beaten
1 x 15 ml spoon (1 tbsp) black treacle
1 x 5 ml spoon (1 tsp) mixed spice
pinch salt
300 g (10 oz) Be-Ro Plain Flour
400 g (14 oz) currants
300 g (10 oz) sultanas
300 g (10 oz) raisins
50 g (2 oz) cut mixed peel
50 g (2 oz) blanched almonds for decoration
Method:1 Heat oven to 150ºC, 300ºF, Gas Mark 2. Grease and line a 23 cm (9 inch) round or 20.5 cm (8 inch) square.
2 Cream butter and sugar. Add beaten eggs and treacle.
3 Mix in sifted spice and salt and fold in the flour. Add fruit and mix well.
4 Place mixture in prepared tin, arrange nuts on top and protect with brown paper (see Clebration Fruit Cake link above).
5 Bake for 4-4½ hours.
It really is up to you whether or not you want to feed the cake with alcholol or not, but if you do, do it once a week for a month it really does add to the flavours and creates a nice moist sponge.
How to store:
Wrap the cooled cake well in grease proof paper, and then with tin foil and store in a cool dry place. once fed repeat the same method again.
To decorate:
If you have enough time cover with marapan a week before you use royal icing so that it does not discolour!!
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