Christmas Cake.

Well now, Bear and Bug is really getting into the Christmas spirit!

As i mentioned in my last post i did indeed bake my Christmas cake a few days ago. And even if i do say so myself, it's by far my best yet!

I use a Dan Lepard recipe, as it really is the best recipe i have found. It's really dense and moist and gooey. All the good things you want a Christmas cake to be!

You start off by boiling down the Guinness which is then taken off the heat to which the sugar and treacle added.

While this is happening you are heating the butter in a separate pan. You want the bottom of the butter to go golden brown.

 

The butter is then added to the Guinness treacle mixture.

 

In a separate mixing bowl to mix together all the dried fruit and the orange zest.

Which then is covered in the lovely gooey treacle mixture! This smells amazing.

 

I then added the spices. The recipe says to add them to the butter when you are heating it, but i forgot to do this. Opps! I don't think it effected the cake at all though. I also double the amount of ginger and cinnamon (and the cherries as well) as i especially like these things, always good to have a bit of a play with a recipe i always think!

Strong wholewheat bread flower is then added to the mixture (although not nearly as much as you think i cake would need, this cake really is mainly fruit. Yum!).

I then triple lined the cake tin. This is to stop the cake from burning as the cooking time is really long. Really really long.

In the end the cake was in the oven for nearly two hours! But it was worth it as a long slow cook keeps the cake moist. Plus the house smelt amazing. Now i just have to decide how to decorate it!