Mauritian Christmas Cake – Part 2

After a week of soaking the fruits in alcohol…

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…it is time to make our Christmas Cakes.

I was rather fascinated by the dried fruits (raisins, sultanas, glacé pineapple, glacé cherry and citrus peels) when I opened the plastic containers this morning. Not only a beautiful smell greeted me but the little shrivelled things had plumped up no end.

 

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I felt bad because having woken up at 5 am and not wishing to disturb anyone who was still asleep, I crept downstairs to start the day without washing my face and applying any face cream. Since I don’t like stopping once I start work, by midday my face felt a bit like a shrunken dried raisin. Now I see the reason why Korean women wear these face masks to bed overnight. They must wake up with lovely hydrated faces.

The recipe below is for one 20 cm cake. I baked two cakes this morning and a further two are in the oven as I write. Fortuitously, and there is no other word for it, I have two 20 cm sized tins. This saves a lot of time as each cake takes four hours to bake.

 

For the Cake:

250g self-raising flour

250g Billington’s demerara sugar

250g unsalted butter, softened

5 large eggs

Dried fruits from the previous recipe

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You will also need a 20 cm round loose-based cake tin, lined with baking parchment at the bottom and sides

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How to Make:

Preheat the oven to 140°C, gas mark 1.

Place the flour into a large bowl, then add the sugar, butter and eggs.

 

Using anything from a wooden spoon to a KitchenAid electric mixer, beat the batter ingredients until everything is well mixed

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Add the soaked fruits and stir with a spatula until all the fruit is evenly distributed

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Spoon the mixture to the prepared tin. Level the top with a back of a spoon. Place the cake near the centre of the oven and bake it for 3 hours, at which point the top will be quite brown. Cover with a piece of foil so the top doesn’t brown further. Bake the cake for another hour, until the top bounces back when pressed

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Cool the cake completely before turning out and removing the parchment

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Store in a suitable container lined with parchment paper and wrapped in foil. I am very excited about this cake but hope to make it to Christmas before cutting into it.

 

Suppliers:
Dried fruits: Country Products
Cake tins:  Silverwood
Baking parchment: Lakeland Limited