Easy Christmas cake

This is a simple, delicious Christmas cake, packed with fruit.

It’s easy to make, easy to bake, easy to cover and easy to decorate.

It looks fantastic and your friends and family will love it.

It has a gorgeous, intense flavour, with plenty of texture thanks to mixed dried fruit, candied peel, glace cherries, and almonds in a black treacle sponge. It’s all covered with marzipan and white sugar paste, and topped with simple sugar paste holly decorations.

Here’s how to make it, complete with step-by-step instructions and plenty of pics and tips to ensure you end up with a fantastic Christmas cake.

Ingredients

To make your Christmas cake

200g baking margarine
225g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp black treacle
5 medium eggs
250g plain flour
750g mixed dried fruit
55g mixed cut peel
100g glace cherries
100g blanched almonds
65g ground almonds
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 lemon, zest

To cover your Christmas cake

1 tbsp apricot jam
450g marzipan
675g white sugar paste
icing sugar, to dust

Extra decorations for your Christmas cake

2-3 drops red gel food colouring
2-3 drops green gel food colouring

Instructions

Prepare your Christmas cake tin

Prepare your baking tin by greasing and then triple lining with two layers of baking paper on the inside and one layer of brown paper on the outside.

For step-by-step images showing how to do this, follow my foolproof guide to lining a Christmas cake tin here.

Make your Christmas cake

Preheat the oven to 140C (120C fan).

In a bowl, cream the margarine and sugar together until slightly pale and fluffy.

Add the treacle to the bowl and beat in.

Add one egg and mix.

Sprinkle some flour in the bowl and mix again.

Keep alternating until all of the eggs and all of the flour is added.

Add the mixed fruit, mixed peel, glace cherries, blanched almonds, ground almonds, mixed spice, nutmeg and lemon zest.

Mix and make a wish!

Pour your cake mix into your prepared tin.

Cover with a square with a hole snipped in it, as per the cake lining instructions.

Bake your Christmas cake in the oven for 3 to 3 1/2 hours. It’s ready when a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Once baked, allow the cake to cool in its tin for 15 minutes.

Remove the brown paper, then lift your cake free of its tin and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

You can now peel the baking paper away.

Don’t forget to move the paper from the base, too.

Cover your Christmas cake with marzipan

When your cake has cooled completely, turn upside down so that the flat edge is on top. If your cake domed a lot during cooking and won’t sit flat, you can trim it a little before flipping over.

Brush the top (which was the bottom!) of your cake all over with a thin layer of apricot jam. This will help the marzipan stick.

Dust your work surface with icing sugar to stop any sticking, then knead your marzipan until it’s soft and smooth.

Dust your surface again, if necessary and roll your marzipan out into a rough disc shape, large enough to cover the whole cake with a little to spare.

Roll the marzipan over your rolling pin, then gently lay on top of the cake.

Smooth off down the sides with the palm of your hand. Trim the base with a sharp knife.

Cover your Christmas cake with white sugar paste

Dust your work surface with icing sugar again.

Roll your sugar paste out into a rough disc shape, large enough to cover the whole cake with a little to spare.

Roll the sugar paste over your rolling pin, then gently lay on top of the cake.

Smooth off down the sides with the palm of your hand. Trim the base with a sharp knife.

Extra decorations for your Christmas cake

Grab two small pieces of leftover white sugar paste and work into two balls – this will be your holly and berries.

Flatten each ball of sugar paste. Put 2-3 drops of green food colouring on one and 2-3 drops of red food colouring on the other.

Knead each ball until they are evenly coloured.

Dust your work surface again and roll the green sugar paste out thinly.

Use a sharp knife to cut out holly leaf shapes. If you like, you can use the point of the knife to score veins onto the leaves.

Take small pieces of the red sugar paste and roll into balls to form holly berries.

Your hands may have colour on them so wash and dry them before you continue or you may stain the white sugar paste.

Apply your leaves and berries to the cake, using a wet finger to help them stick.

Ta da! A cake fit for a Christmas feast. Doesn’t it look delicious?

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

More tips for the perfect Christmas cake

Can I use the two-piece marzipan method?

If you’re used to covering your cake by making a disc for the top and a strip for the sides, then that method is great too! In fact, it can make your cake look neater with crisp, sharp edges.

I haven’t used this method for this recipe because it’s a little trickier and I did promise an easy cake!

However, if you’d like to give the two-step marzipan process a try, my good friend Charlotte of Restoration Cake is an incredibly talented baker, and she has a very clear and easy to follow guide to marzipanning your cake in two halves.

Print this Christmas cake recipe

Here’s that easy Christmas cake recipe again in printable format:

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote