Stained Glass Christmas Cake

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

This is Belinda Jeffrey’s recipe published in the Dec/Jan edition of Delicious magazine. It has hardly any cake, just decadently full of fruits and nuts. The orange and lemon zests give it a fresh lift. You can put in any permutations of dried fruits and nuts as long as the combined weight is 810g. I used apricots and cranberries instead of glace cherries, I think I’ll try some glace ginger next time.

Ingredients

125g Brazil nuts

125g pecans

250g pitted dates, chopped

125g glace pineapple, cut into 1 cm pieces

125g red glace cherries

60g glace peaches, chopped

1tbsp Grand Marnier or cognac

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Grated zest of 1 orange

½ cup (75g) plain flour, sifted

¾ tsp baking powder

A small pinch of salt

3 eggs

90g caster sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

40g unsalted butter, melted

¾ cup apricot jam

Method

1.          Preheat oven to 140C.

2.          Grease and line a 21x11x6cm loaf pan.

3.          Placed all the fruits in a bowl with the alcohol, mix in the nuts and zests.

4.          Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy.

5.          Add in the sifted flour, baking powder and salt.

6.          Add in the cooled melted butter.

7.          Combine the batter with the fruits and nuts.

8.          Spoon batter into the loaf pan and level the top with the back of a spoon.

9.          Bake for 1 ½ hours or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. (only took 1 hr and 10 minutes in my oven)

10.      Place on wire rack and allow cake to cool completely in the pan.

11.      To serve, warm the apricot jam with a couple of spoonfuls for water in the microwave and brush over the top of the cake.