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Quick and easy Christmas cake


Serves: 20
timePrep time: 20 mins
timeTotal time:
Quick and easy Christmas cake
Recipe photograph by Dan Jones

Quick and easy Christmas cake


Serves: 20
timePrep time: 20 mins
timeTotal time:

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Nutritional information (per serving)
Calories
287Kcal
Fat
14gr
Saturates
7gr
Carbs
37gr
Sugars
26gr
Fibre
3gr
Protein
5gr
Salt
0.4gr

Sainsbury's magazine

Sainsbury's magazine

Our team of trained chefs and skilled food writers love cooking up everything from innovative seasonal recipes or clever shortcuts, to step-by-step guides and classic recipes for friends and readers alike.

See more of Sainsbury's magazine’s recipes
Sainsbury's magazine

Sainsbury's magazine

Our team of trained chefs and skilled food writers love cooking up everything from innovative seasonal recipes or clever shortcuts, to step-by-step guides and classic recipes for friends and readers alike.

See more of Sainsbury's magazine’s recipes

Ingredients

  • 150g ready-to-eat dried figs
  • 225g stoned, soft prunes
  • 100g skin-on almonds
  • 225g soft butter
  • 185g dark brown soft sugar
  • 250g self-raising flour
  • ½ rounded tsp ground cinnamon
  • ½ rounded tsp ground ginger
  • a generous pinch of ground cloves
  • 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 225g raisins
  • juice and zest of 1 large lemon
  • 3 tbsp black treacle
  • 4-5 tbsp dark rum
For the icing
  • 3 tbsp apricot glaze, warmed in the microwave or a small saucepan, until runny
  • 500g rolled-out marzipan
  • 750g rolled-out white icing

Step by step

Get ahead

You can freeze the cooled, uniced cake. Once iced, it will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container.

  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas 3. Line a 7cm-deep 20cm square tin with buttered baking paper.

  2. Snip the figs and prunes into small pieces. Roughly chop the almonds. Put the butter and sugar in an electric mixer and beat until fluffy.

  3. Sift the flour into a bowl with the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Add this and the beaten eggs alternately to the butter and sugar in the mixer, beating on a low setting all the time.

    Tip

    You can also bake this cake in a round 20cm tin; cook for 2-2½ hours.

  4. Stir in the fruit, almonds, lemon juice and zest, treacle and 3 tablespoons of the rum by hand. Tip into the tin and even out with a spatula. Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until golden and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.

  5. When cold, make small insertions in the surface and drizzle over a little extra rum. To ice your cake, brush the cake with a little warmed apricot glaze, then cover it completely with 500g rolled-out marzipan, trimming off the excess. Brush the marzipan with cooled boiled water. Cover with 750g rolled-out white icing and trim off the excess. 

Chef quote
To make a gluten-free cake, use a gluten and wheat-free white self-raising flour blend and increase the liquid in the mixture to the juice of 1½ lemons and 4 tbsp rum. Check the marzipan and icing are gluten-free too.

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