Stir Up Sunday - Festive Fruit Cake Mix

Today is stir up Sunday which means its time to dust off your pudding basins and hunt out your dried fruit as today is the traditional day to make your Christmas pudding and Christmas Cake. It’s called ‘stir up’ for the obvious reasons that you stir together your fruit mixes and it’s always held on the last Sunday before the start of Advent (next week) to acknowledge the start of the festive food preparations. This then gives your cakes and puddings four weeks to mature, develop in flavour and be ‘fed’ with Brandy or other spirits to give them that characteristic richness, moistness and boozy flavour.

Every year I bake the same Christmas cake recipe that I have tailored to suit my families tastes, but this year I felt like doing something a bit different and by simply changing some of the fruits included and the tray of soaking liqueur I’m hoping to end up with a different twist on my much loved classic. Below is the fruit base for the Christmas cake I’m baking this year but click here to see last years more traditional cake mix. The baking of the cake is to come!

I prepared and soaked the fruit for my Christmas cake yesterday, in readiness for baking today and I will be preparing my Christmas pudding mix today. It’s a fun festive tradition and I just love the colours and festive aromas you encounter along the way. Baking your own is so satisfying and rewarding that I encourage everyone to start up and stir up!

Festive Fruit Cake Mix
Ingredients
100g dried cranberries
75g glace cherries
175g dates
85g dried apricots
175g dried figs
½ Bramley apple
100g raisins
40g glace stem ginger
Zest of an orange
Zest of a lemon
2 tbsp Cointreau (orange liqueur)

Method
In a large mixing bowl place the cranberries and raisins. Quarter the cherries and add to the bowl.
Use a pair of scissors to chop the figs, apricots and dates into small pieces, similar in size to the quartered cherries.
Peel, core and dice the apple into ½ cm cubes. Finely chop the glace stem ginger.
Grate over the zest of the orange and lemon and drizzle over the Cointreau.
Give everything a good stir before covering with cling film and leaving to soak, plump up and macerate overnight.
Makes enough for an 8inch circular Christmas cake

Festive Fruit and Orange Choc Chip Mini Panettones

Sorry for my absence over the last few days, what with winter flu and colds, family gatherings, uni work and general holiday hectic-ness I haven’t found the time to sit down and blog. However I have been keeping my camera at my side and so now have a little backlog of recipes to post about, so if you see a few festive recipes here in the next couple of weeks don’t be confused – I know its nearly the middle of January, but its still cold and icy outside and I’m trying to catch up.

Over the Christmas and New Year I baked a range of goodies for friends and family, both as gifts and as sweet treats to have on hand should any visitors call in. One of the festive treats I love over Christmas is panettone. A real Italian panettone is a baking masterpiece, light and buttery, and studded with fruits, nuts or chocolate and I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t like one variety or another.

This year I decided to try and make my own miniature panettones to give away as gifts as I had been given some pretty card muffin cases which reminded me of the small panettone cases I have seen in bakeries. I couldn’t decide on what flavour to do and so I made a plain dough with just a hint of orange zest and then divided it in half and made one batch dark chocolate chip and the other a mix of colourful festive fruits.

The dough is quite straightforward, although you need to plan in advance for making these as you have to make a biga, a sort of starter, which has to ferment overnight before you can begin work on the main dough. So it’s a slightly lengthy but fun process. The dough itself was a little sticky but smooth and supple and very easy to work with. I was so pleased when they came out of the oven with their golden tops and soft buttery interiors. I wrapped most of them in cellophane and attached little labels and gave them away as gifts, but I made sure to keep some back for myself. I found the texture to be slightly heavier and denser than a true Italian panettone (and how do they get it that wonderful golden colour inside?) but it was soft and buttery with a lovely flavour so I was by no means disappointed.

Festive Fruit and Orange Choc Chip Mini Panettones
(Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour Company)

Biga
180g plain flour
115ml water
¼ tsp instant yeast

Dough
3 eggs
115g butter cut into chunks
300g plain flour
60g caster sugar
5 tsp instant yeast
1½ tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
Zest of 1 orange

Extras
125g dried fruit (figs, raisins, apricots & cherries)
125g dark chocolate chips
40g butter for brushing

Method – for the biga
Sieve the flour into a bowl, mix with the yeast and pour over the water. Mix together with your hands until a dough is formed. Knead for a few minutes until soft and springy.
Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in a fairly cool place for 12 hours or overnight until light and bubbly.
To make the dough, simply place all the dough ingredients and the bubbly biga into a food mixer and mix with the dough hook until it forms a soft yet sticky dough. You can do this by hand, but it takes a lot longer.
Divide the dough into two equal portions place in greased bowls to prove for an hour until slightly risen.
Turn out onto a work surface and knead the chocolate chips into one half and the fruit (roughly chopped) into the other half.
Tear off chunks of the dough and roll into balls. Each ball should weigh around 100-120g in weight.
Place the balls into sturdy card muffin cases. (I got 6 balls of each variety from the mix). Place the muffin cases on a large tray and leave to rise in a warm place for a further 2hours until well risen.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the panettones for 15 minutes until golden brown, then quickly cover with a sheet of foil and bake for a further 5 minutes.
Remove from the oven and transfer the panettones in their cases to a wire rack.
Brush a little melted butter over the top of each panettone and leave to cool before either serving or wrapping in clingfilm and storing in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Daring Bakers December Challenge: Frozen French Yule Log

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand

What is a French Yule Log and how is it different from the Yule Log I made last December with the Daring Bakers? In France you can buy two kinds of Yule log, either a Genoise and Buttercream log shaped cake , or a frozen Yule Log containing many different layers including Dacquoise Biscuit, Chocolate Mousse, Ganache, Praline Crisp, Crème Brulee and Chocolate Icing. That’s right 6 components and the mousse and dacquoise biscuit can make more than one layer! I’m sure you can understand how I sank to the floor in a daunted state of disbelief upon reading the 18 page document that made up the recipe. Thankfully nearly half of that were options on flavour variations for the components but it still results in the most multi stage/component recipe I have ever made. That being said, once I had sorted out the recipe in my head I found each component to be relatively straight forward and apart from the chocolate icing (which is best made the day you serve it) I got the challenge completed in one day without any disasters. The log is frozen overnight before being turned out and covered in a glossy chocolate icing before being returned to the freezer for a few hours before serving.

We could choose what shape to make our ‘logs’ but I decided to go with a loaf tin instead of a cake tin to try and resemble the thinner shape of a log. We were given many options for flavours but I decided to keep things quite simple as I was serving the dessert on Christmas day and wanted to make something I knew everyone would eat. My dacquoise biscuit was made with ground almonds and is similar to a genoise you make for a swiss roll. Once baked, I then cut around the base and top of my loaf tin to get the correct sized layers. The mousse and ganache were half milk, half dark chocolate, the praline crisp hazelnut and the crème brulee vanilla and I love the resulting pale streak in the middle of the log. The chocolate icing and mousse both call for gelatin, but as I’m Vegetarian I left this out. We were told that we could use agar agar if we didn’t want to use gelatin, but I read the recipe and couldn’t see a reason why gelatin was needed in the first place, especially as the whole dessert is frozen so I skipped that part completely and my dessert didn’t suffer in the slightest. If anything I suspect it turned out smoother and creamier than if I had used gelatin as this would have given it a slight gelatinous consistency, which I don’t like.

The chocolate mousse component in its unfrozen state is just divine. I was initially a little concerned as my mousse was very thick and stiff but as I mixed, it suddenly transformed into a rich and creamy mousse that was velvety smooth. I couldn’t help eating a few spoonfuls before it even got near the tin. I plan to make this again and serve it in little espresso cups, it was so good.

I pleased to say it went down very well with everyone on Christmas day, the only thing I would change if I made it again is to try and flatten my praline crisp into a thinner layer as it was rather thick, but this wasn’t particularly a bad thing. Once again, I’m so pleased the Daring Bakers made me make something I wouldn’t normally have attempted, as the results were well worth the effort. Don’t forget to check out the other Bakers Yule Logs and click here for the recipe.

Christmas Cake Stage 5 – Icing and Decorating

Ingredients
500g – 1kg fondant icing
1 tbsp vodka, rum or gin
Ribbon
2 small pins
Food dye
Icing sugar for dusting

Christmas is nearly upon us and it’s now time to ice and decorate your Christmas cake. You can cover it in fondant or royal icing, but I much prefer fondant. Not only is it much easier to work with but I think it’s also nicer to eat than a hard layer of royal icing. You will only need 500g of fondant to cover your cake, but if you want to make extra decorations such as holly leaves or little figurines then you will need nearer to 1kg. You cover the cake in the same way as you do the marzipan, only this time use a clear alcohol instead of the jam to stick the fondant onto the cake. Working with 500g of fondant, roll it out into a large circle on a work surface dusted with icing sugar. Test if the circle is large enough to easily cover your cake by holding the cake board over the top like before.

Brush the top and sides of the cake with the alcohol and drape the icing over the top in one fluid movement. Use your rolling pin to help you pick up the icing from the work surface without tearing it. Smooth the icing down the sides of the cake using the side of a cupped hand until it looks like a hat with a frilly rim. You can now either trim off the excess to the edge of the cake or if you have lots of excess icing you can even flatten it down over the top of the cake board too, and trim off the excess at the very edge of the board. If you decide to cover the board too, then place the cake on top of a large can and use a large knife to carefully cut away the excess icing.

You are now free to decorate the cake in any way you wish. One of the simplest ways is to just wrap a length of ribbon around the bottom edge and secure it with a few embroidery pins (just remember to remove them before serving!!) This not only looks stylish but also covers up any jagged edges from any icing mishaps. You can then add ordainments, candles, stencils, wring, piping, fondant models, cut out shapes or flowers on top – it’s up to you to make your cake your own – make it as wild and wacky or simple and traditional as you like.

Last year I made a poinsettia and this year I wanted to try making a holly wreath with little red berries and pine cones out of fondant. To do this I made a long sausage shape out of white fondant and wrapped it around the edge of a large jar to form a circle and placed it onto a thin cake board that I first covered with cling film. I then dyed some more fondant green and cut out lots of holly shapes. I then draped these over the ring of white icing and left it to dry. I then made some tiny berries and dyed the last of my icing brown for the pine cones. I wasn’t sure these were going to work but I had an idea in my head of forming a cone shape out of fondant and then using small sharp scissors to made little cuts all over them. I gave it a go and I think it looks quite effective. I had a few scraps of coloured icing left over and decided to make a little cheerful robin too. Use a paint brush and a little glace icing or clear alcohol to stick the shapes in place. And…. finito!

That’s the end of my Christmas cake step by step guide. For all of you who had made your own cakes I hope you enjoy them and for everyone else, I hope you have enjoyed reading about the stages. Don’t panic if you accidently stab your finger into the icing, gently try to smooth it out with the palm of your hand or failing that, just cover it up with a decoration or some ribbon and no one will be any the wiser.
Happy holidays everyone.

Christmas Cake Stage 4 – Covering with Marzipan

Ingredients
500g marzipan
1 tbsp apricot jam
1 tsp water
Icing sugar for rolling

Your Christmas cake should have matured nicely and be rich and moist thanks to its 3 or 4 weekly Brandy feeds. It is now time to cover it with a layer of marzipan. To do this unwrap your cake and carefully peel away the greaseproof paper – mmm doesn’t it smell wonderful! Remember to remove the greaseproof base too (I nearly forgot one year). Place the cake on a 9-10inch cake board. Take a bread knife and carefully trim off the top layer to level the surface – it doesn’t have to be completely flat, just ensure any lumps and bumps are removed. Don’t throw these scraps away – put them on a plate and eat them later as a sneaky preview taster of the kind of flavour you can expect from your cake. (If the top of your cake you’re a little too brown in the oven it might taste slightly bitter, but as you have just removed these bits it doesn’t matter). Once the top is fairly level, turn the cake over and use the base as the top from now on.

If you look closely you will notice that there will be a few tiny holes dotted over the surface. This is just where fruit has cooked down or been accidently pulled out by the greaseproof paper. You want to fill these to prevent the marzipan from sinking into them later. Simply use teeny tiny blobs of marzipan to fill in any of the holes. Don’t worry how many you have, they will not be noticeable once covered.

Next, roll our your remaining marzipan until 3-4mm thick and wide enough to completely cover the top and sides of your cake. To test if it is large enough, hold your cake on its cake board over the top of the marzipan and if you can see it about an inch all the way round the base of the board then it’s big enough.

Heat the apricot jam with a little water in the microwave until syrupy. Then brush the top and sides of the cake all over with warmed jam – this acts as your glue to stick the marzipan to the cake.

Lift the marzipan up with the help of your rolling pin and drape it over the cake (I think it looks like a ghost or a tablecloth). Smooth the marzipan down the sides of the cake using the side of a cupped hand. Trim off any excess using a small round-bladed butter knife – leave ½cm rim from the edge of the cake to allow the marzipan to lay flat against the cake once cut. And you’re done!

Place it in an airtight container or tin but leave one corner slightly ajar to allow the air to slightly dry the surface of the marzipan out. This won’t dry out the cake underneath. Leave to dry for 3-4 days before covering with fondant or royal icing and decorating. This time use a clear alcoholic spirit as your ‘glue.’ The idea behind leaving the marzipan to dry slightly is that if you add the icing on top straight away there is a slightly chance that the colour from the marzipan may leech into the icing and you could end up with a blotchy coloured icing, especially if you use golden marzipan. Final stage to come!

Christmas Gingerbread Cookies

My flat mates decided to throw an early Christmas party and I thought it would be a good idea to have some festive cookies to nibble on and to decorate the Christmas tree and gingerbread seemed the perfect choice. I made gingerbread cookies last year too, but I found the recipe a bit temperamental and wanted to try something different. I remembered the recipe for my favourite vanilla cut out cookies and decided to try and adapt it to the festive season.

I added spices, black pepper and treacle and used light brown sugar instead of caster to give a more golden colour and depth of flavour. The dough came together very easily and after a short rest in the fridge it was a doddle to roll out. The cookies kept their shape well during baking and turned out crisp yet still tender. They filled the flat with their festive aroma and had a lovely lingering taste of spice. I ended up with over 50 cookies and spent a happy hour decorating them before the guests arrived. They were a big hit and even the ones from the Christmas tree got munched, apparently they “fell” into peoples mouths. I’ll be making another batch before the festivities are over.

Christmas Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
185g butter
200g soft brown sugar
350g plain flour
1 egg
2 tsp ground ginger
1½ tsp mixed spice
¼ tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp black treacle

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat in the egg followed by the black treacle.
Add the spices and sift over the flour. Using a spatula, work the flour into the batter until a dough is formed. Use your hands towards the end to bring the mix into a dough.
Kneed it gently until smooth. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and flatten slightly into a disc. Place in the fridge for 30minutes to firm up.
After 30 minutes, preheat your oven to 180C and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
Cut the dough in half and working with one piece at a time, roll it out on a floured surface until 4mm thick. Cut out a variety of shapes using festive cutters and place on the baking trays. They don’t spread so you have fit them quite close together.
Bake in the oven for 8-9 minutes until golden and crisp.
Allow to cool for 2 minutes before transferring the cookies, still on the greaseproof paper, to a wire rack to cool.
Repeat with the remaining dough.
Once cooled, decorate with royal icing and sprinkles if desired.
Makes 45-55 cookies depending on size.

Note: If you want to hang some of the cookies on the Christmas tree, cut out a small hole at the top of each cookie using the tip of a small piping nozzle before baking. Tread through a piece of ribbon when cool.

This is also my entry to Food Blogga’s Christmas Cookie event. Click here the ongoing cookie roundup.

Apple Date & Raisin Chutney

This is a lovely winter chutney, sweet and fruity but with a gentle warming glow from chilies and fresh ginger. It’s the perfect accompaniment to cheese and some good crusty bread but would work equally well with ham or a wedge of pork pie. It’s extremely quick to make; in less than an hour you can have 4 jars of chutney cooling on the counter.

You can make it your own by replacing the raisins with dried apricots and one of the apple with a couple of pears. If you don’t like the idea of the chili, then just use one or remove it altogether and add some cloves or mixed spice instead. The only drawback to the chutney is that you will need a change of clothes and shower after making it as the steaming vinegar tends to permeate into your clothes, but that’s a small price to pay for such a yummy reward.

The chutney can be eaten after two weeks but the vinegar may still be quite sharp, the longer you leave it to mature the stickier and mellower it will become. Presented with a little spoon, it would make the perfect addition to a homemade hamper of Christmas goodies.

Apple Date & Raisin Chutney
(Recipe adapted from Tesco Food Club Magazine)
Ingredients
500g stoned dates
150g raisins
1 large onion (150g)
2 cooking apples
3 red chilies
50g chunk root ginger
3 cloves of garlic
300ml water
150g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
600ml (1pint) distilled vinegar

Method
Place four large jars and their lids on a baking tray in the oven. Then turn on the oven to 100C and heat for 10 minutes once the oven has reached temperature. Then turn off the oven but the leave the jars inside to keep warm until required.
Chop the dates into small pieces and place in a large saucepan. Peel and finely dice the onion and apples and place in the pan along with the raisins.
Prick the chilies with a knife, but keep them whole and add to the pan.
Grate the ginger and garlic and add to the pan along with water.
Bring the mixture to a simmer and heat for 15 minutes until the onion and apple are starting to soften. Then stir in the sugar, salt and vinegar.
Bring up to the boil then reduce slightly and allow to bubble for 20 minutes, stirring almost constantly until everything is mushy and thickened.
Keep stirring until a spreadable consistency is achieved and there is no excess liquid.
Remove from the heat and fish out the chilies and discard.
Take the warm jars from the oven and carefully spoon the hot chutney between them.
Screw the lids on immediately, using rubber gloves, and leave to cool before applying a label and storing for at least 2 weeks (preferably a month) before opening.
Once opened, store in the fridge.
Makes 1.5kg (3lb) chutney

This is also my entry to Homemade Christmas Gifts event by My Kitchen Treasures. Click here to see the details and here to see the enteries as they get submitted.

Christmas Cake Stage 3 – Feeding the Cake

Just a reminder, don’t forget to feed you Christmas cake. Unwrap it, prick the top with a skewer and drizzle over a few teaspoons of Brandy. Then wrap it back up and keep it in a cool dark place until next week, when it will be time for another feeding.

Award
On another note, the lovely Antonia from Food Glorious Food awarded me the ‘I love your blog’ award. Thanks Antonia it really made me smile.

I now wish to pass it on to Gigi from Gigi Cakes – my long time friend (even though we’ve never actually met) who bakes a whole host tempting treats

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe who proves that Vegetarian food is anything but boring

And The Cake Crusader who bakes delicious cakes and indulgent desserts

Christmas Cake Stage 2 – Baking the Cake

After soaking your fruits overnight it’s time to bake them into a cake. A fruit cake such as this is really fruit held together with cake, rather than a cake containing fruit as it’s very densely fruited. The cake mix itself is still very flavoursome in its own right as it contains mixed spice, black treacle, brown sugar and little nuggets of almonds.

It’s important to line the base and sides of the cake tin with greaseproof paper as this stays on the cake right up until you are ready to ice it, and helps keep it moist. Once you have prepared your cake mix, added your boozy fruits and spooned it into the tin it’s a good idea to create a little hollow or dip in the centre of the cake as this then compensates for the normal doming effect during baking and you should end up with a lovely flat surface on which to decorate later – we don’t want any wastage!

The wonderful rich and spicy aroma given off by the cake permeated throughout the whole flat, making it smell very festive. Once baked, it’s drizzled with a little extra Brandy before being wrapped and stored away to mature for several weeks. All you need to do now is nurture it by ‘feeding it’ once a week with a few extra teaspoons of Brandy – which helps keep it moist and develop in flavour.

Christmas Cake Mix
For an 8inch/20cm round cake
Ingredients
225g plain flour
1 ½ tsp mixed spice
40g ground almonds
40g blanched almonds
165g soft brown sugar
165g butter or margarine
1 tbsp black treacle
3 eggs
1 lemon - zest
(Your pre-soaked mixed fruit)
Feeding
1 ½ tbsp Brandy

Method
Grease and line bottom and sides of an 8 inch tin with greaseproof paper, allowing the paper to rise a little way above the rim of the tin.
Pre heat the oven to 140oC.
Measure the lemon rind, flour, mixed spice, ground almonds, sugar, butter, treacle and eggs into a very large bowl and mix together. Beat it for 3 minutes until mixture is smooth. (It will be quick stiff)
Roughly chop the blanched almonds and add to the mix along with the soaked fruits. Mix everything together using a spatula, making sure the fruit is evenly distributed.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, pressing down gently and smoothing the surface. Then create a little dip in the middle to compensate for doming in the oven which should result in a flat surface when baked.
Bake the cake for 2 hours and 45 minutes. (After 2 hours you can quickly cover the tin with foil if it is becoming too brown before baking for a further 45 minutes).
Check the cake with a skewer, which should come out clean.
Measure out the ‘feeding’ Brandy into a small bowl and prick the top of the cake all over with the skewer. Evenly drizzle over the Brandy using a teaspoon.
Allow the cake to cool in the tin before removing from the tin but leaving the greaseproof paper on.
Wrap it up well in clingfilm and leave in a cool place to mature for several weeks. Feed once a week with a few more teaspoons of Brandy until required.

Christmas Cake Stage 1 – Preparing the Fruit Base

I’m so excited – it’s time to start preparing the fruit ready for the Christmas cake. Making the Christmas cake each year symbolises to me that the holiday season is nearly here and its time to start thinking about festive food and presents. It may seem early to start thinking about Christmas cakes, but they like to sit tightly wrapped in a cool place for several weeks before eating. A weekly feeding of Brandy keeps it moist and helping it mature into something special.

I know many people who say they don’t like Christmas cake but I’m sure that’s because they have only ever had shop bought cake which can be dense, dry and nothing like a good Christmas fruit cake should be. Make your own and be rewarded with a moist rich, lightly spiced, Brandy infused, plump fruit studded cake that will knock the Christmas stocking off any store bought creation.

To start, you need to soak your fruit base in brandy overnight to become all plump and flavoursome. I prepared mine last night and the aroma of all the sweet fruits, orange zest and brandy is wonderful and unlike no other. It smelt so good that I left the bowl containing the soaking fruits in my bedroom overnight so I could breathe in its Christmassy scents.

Christmas Cake Fruit Base
For an 8inch/20cm round cake
Ingredients
175g raisins
175g sultanas
175g currants
85g dried apricots
100g glace cherries
35g mixed candied peel (or zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon)
2 tbsp Brandy

Method
Weight out the raisins, currants and sultanas into a bowl. Sort through the fruit a handful at a time, removing any stalks still attached to the fruit (these won’t be nice to crunch on).
Cut the apricots into small pieces and same size as the raisins, chop the cherries into quarters and add to the other fruit.
Add the candied peel or if you don’t like candied peel, grate over the zest of an orange and a lemon.
Pour over the Brandy, give everything a stir and then over the bowl with clingfilm and leave for at least 4hours or preferably overnight to allow the fruit to absorb the brandy and plump up.

If you run out of one or more of the fruits dried cranberries, peaches, pears, prunes and dates also work well.
If you don’t want to use Brandy then a spiced fruit tea or apple juice would work just as well.