This Christmas we are making a recipe that originally came from a 1997 Sainsbury's Magazine article by Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray from The River Cafe. It's called Dada's Christmas cake with chocolate.
It is partly in tribute to the talented Ms Gray, who sadly died earlier this year and partly because it is a stonkingly good cake that may appeal more to kids (via the chopped up chocolate in it) and those not keen on traditional Christmas cake. Those wanting a more traditional approach might prefer our delicious Christmas cake recipe here
Gather the ingredients and do the pre-prep soaking and chopping, then we'll give you the method on Sunday. This cake is best left for just a couple of weeks to mature, or you can eat it immediately.
PS we're also going for a more minimal approach to decorating this year….we've used edible silver and vintage ribbon.
Ingredients
300gs chopped up, good quality chocolate. I use a mix of dark and milk.
50gs glace cherries
175gs mixed candied peel (good quality)
75gs raisins
175mls rum, vin santo or any other ends of bottles of spirit you need to clear out.
110gs whole hazelnuts
150gs whole almonds
75gs flaked almonds
125gs butter
50gs castor sugar
110gs plain flour
3 large eggs
175gs ground almonds
zest one lemon
295gs clear honey
25gs apricot jam (actually I used some of my peach and basil from my jam making glut..it was fine)
Before you cook….
Soak all the dried fruit in the alcohol for at least 24hrs, longer if you can.
Chop the whole nuts up into smallish chunks -or leave them larger if you like 'em like that, and chop the chocolate up into similar sized bits.
Gather/purchase all other ingredients
Get yourself a large cake tin, mine was 25 cms across and line it with parchment or those great Lakeland cake liners.
Method coming Sunday!
