Stir Up Sunday - The Ultimate Christmas Cake Recipe

Method:

1. Put all the dried fruit and peel into a large bowl and add the brandy before covering the bowl and leaving it overnight to absorb all the brandy. (if you can afford to leave it a couple of nights then so much the better!)
2. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees and grease and line your 9" deep round cake tin with greaseproof paper.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until paler in colour and fluffy before you add the eggs one by one. Next add to the bowl all the dry ingredients, sifted plus the ground almonds and mix briefly until all the flour, spice and almonds have been incorporated.
4. Finally add the soaked fruit along with the zests and give it a stir - remembering to make your wish at this stage!
5. Spoon the cake mixture into your tin and level with the back of a spoon. Next cut a disc (if you are making a round cake) or a square piece of greaseproof paper the same size as your cake tin and place this over the top of the mixture to form a lid - this will stop the cake browning too much as it cooks.
6. Bake for 2 hours but check it after the first hour and remove the lid of paper for the last 30 minutes of cooking. Allow to cool in the tin before taking a skewer and making little holes over the surface of the cake before pouring more brandy over the top of the cake (the holes will allow the brandy to sink into the middle of the cake)
7. Once cool wrap in 2 layers of greaseproof and 1 layer of tin foil and continue to feed the cake every week or so before you marzipan and decorate it which can be done a week or so before christmas - or, if you are like me, about 10pm on Christmas Eve!