Christmas Cake Recipe - Easy Fruit Cake that's beautifully moist!

An easy Christmas cake that turns out perfect every time. No creaming, beating or soaking of fruit required! Plus tips on storage and feeding your Christmas cake.

Feeding your fruit cake in the weeks leading up to Christmas helps to build and intensify the flavour of the cake, and will ensure it's beautifully moist.

Oven Temp:
Bake in the oven at 150C/300F (fan) for 45 minutes, then 140C/275F (fan) for a further 60-75 minutes - until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Alcohol-free Christmas Cake:
For a non-alcoholic version, you can replace the alcohol with cold tea, fresh orange or apple juice.
You can then feed the cake with either:
1. Cold tea
2. Fresh orange or apple juice
3. Ginger cordial mixed with water (2 tsp mixed with 2 tbsp water)
4. Rum flavouring mixed with water (⅛ tsp mixed with 2 tbsp water).
If you do this, don’t make the cake any earlier than November, as juice (as opposed to alcohol) could start tasting funny after more than a couple of months.

The easy fruit cake ingredients:
3/4 cup (175g) unsalted butter, chopped
1 packed cup (210g) light brown muscavado sugar
2 + 2/3 cups (400g) mixed dried fruit
1 cup (200g) glacé cherries roughly chopped
1 cup (100g) dried cranberries
Zest and juice of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup (120ml) cherry brandy
1/2 cup (85g) ground almonds (coarsely ground - not the type that is like flour)
3 large eggs lightly whisked
1 + 2/3 cup (200g) plain/all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground allspice

To feed the Christmas cake:
Cherry brandy (1-2 tbsp per week)

#cake #christmasfood #christmas

[create-hxpe]

What is a good (non-alcohol) substitute for the brandy?

[jodieenglish]

This made me cry, I wasn't even looking for a Christmas cake recipe, a total different recipie, just the look of it made me cry, then as I watched you, and you said making it in November, 😥 my beautiful mum, always did this, and a very similar recipie as yours, she passed away christmas morning at 7am, 5yrs ago this Christmas coming... Gee I miss her, I haven't made a Christmas cake before, she always did the honours, and I haven't eaten any for 5yrs now.. I'm going to give it ago, in honor of my mum, it was always just me and mum growing up, just the 2 of us, we were close, even though money was tight growing up, she always splurged on making this beautiful christmas cake.. I hope I do it justice for my family.. She would of been 76 on 10th Dec 2020.

[briansigsworth]

I made this Cake in November 20th, 2022. This is my 1st ever Christmas Cake and my first ever cake. Today, on Boxing Day of 2022 I cut into the cake and served a segment to my Wife - who has made our Christmas cake for the last 40 pressure then! I said nothing to her about ingredients or method and she said: 'This is the best Christmas cake she has ever tasted!' Wow! And I have to agree. She has asked me to bake it next year. 😁. Many thanks for your precise, easy and pleasant video

[tcbbear]

This is simply the easiest and the BEST Christmas cake EVER - moist, loaded with fruit and alcohol and just delicious. I made one a couple of weeks ago with the intention of saving it for Christmas, sadly my birthday came along a couple of days ago and I couldn't resist it. Over half of it is already devoured and the family LOVES IT! I have my second one in the oven right now with 45 minutes of cooking time left. Thank you so much. All my family and friends are going to use this recipe this year. I feel very festive, decorated for Christmas last weekend, have Xmas music blaring out and a log fire crackling away (courtesy of You Tube on the TV lol). I did make a couple of changes (to fit the ingredients I had in) which have worked really well. Instead of individual portions of dried fruit and cranberries I just used 1kg of mixed dried fruit and I added the glace cherries additionally to the 1kg. I used dark brown sugar instead of light and it has given the cake a very rich, festive look, smell and taste. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla essence and I discovered i had no mixed spice, so I added just a touch more cinnamon and a little bit more all spice (maybe 3/4 teaspoon, I was worried that might have made it taste bitter but not at all!). I didn't have cherry brandy so added whiskey. I guess with this excellent recipe ANYTHING goes and it would be very difficult to mess it up or overcook it at such low temperatures. I gave the postman a slice yesterday and he said it is better than his Gran's - a huge compliment. Seriously BEST CAKE AND METHOD Thank you Kitchen Sanctuary!!

[debbiejohnson]

This is recipe my dad used to make our Christmas cake. He got it from his army issued cook book. He was a chef in the Korean war for the Australian guys. Always great memories of this cake. Dad was an excellent cook. Miss him dearly.

[alison__]

I made this last year and the family said it was the best Christmas cake they'd ever had. Making it again today for this Christmas!

[opinionated]

Exactly what I was looking for! You even gave the measurements in ounces/cups at the same time so I don't have to hunt for conversions!! And then gave the cooking temperatures in Fahrenheit!!! Thank you VERY MUCH!!!!

[gerardinecranny]

Made 8 of these cakes for the first time this year as family Christmas gifts - have had lots of messages today saying that this was the best Christmas cake they had ever had. Thanks for such a simple and lovely recipe, will definitely make again 🤗🤶

[bubbles]

Shared this with my dad, he makes many cakes every year, at least 12-14, people are always asking him for cakes at Christmas. This is now his new way of making them.

[lionelmerbles]

If you are a bit late in making your cake just bake it and feed it with booze then chuck it in the freezer for a day . Thaw decorate and eat ! The freeze thaw ages the cake nicely

[svetlanakotenko-forte]

What I like is that you just basically get everything into a large pot, mix and voila! Thank you, I’ll try this recipe this season.👍🏻🌼🌺

[cincin]

Thank goodness I found this. A lost friend gave me this recipe 45 years ago. I made it once and lost it :(
Your a life saver.

[deandradsouza]

This was the best cake I made. I had my uncles revisit their childhood memories with each bite. It was dense and super delicious. This recipe is now my family favourite dish each christmas.

[burrenmagic]

hi. I made this today. Honestly, it is amazing!!! Thank you so much for a fruitcake recipe that definitely does work! I'm so over all the failed recipes i tried to death. This is absolutely divine. It's a winner for all occasions.

[mikevoegeli]

Thank you for your lovely recipe! I made mine today - for the third year in a row... What a joy to find a recipe which is so simple to follow - and which comes out perfectly, every time!

[LisaG]

I made this last year, outstanding! I’m here again to refresh my memory for another cake

[michaeldrake]

I never made a cake before - so as I recently bought a new Bravo XL oven I thought "why not try to make a cake" - finding this recipe, and how you explained it so well I decided to go ahead - as everything was in Grams you couldn't miss - cooking the fruit first, make the process easy and safe - judging by all the comments other people found it to really work well - I just wanted to say thank you.

[roomgrowrose]

My mum would marinate all her dried fruits for her fruit cake, in rum for a year!! Let me tell you, her cake had the most fabulous flavors!! She’d light it a-flame with brandy, with all the lights off for effect, and serve it with a delicious hard sauce also brandy infused!! Amazing!!!

[gauri.hariharan]

I tried your recepie out and it turned out to be my best ever cake! I took the risk of adding just 1 egg instead of 3 since I had run out if eggs, but added half teaspoon of baking soda instead.. thankfully, it came out perfect!! Thank you so much for sharing :)

[emiliaspanou]

Lovely recipe. Did mine today. Waiting for it to bake.
Greetings from Greece.
Bloody expensive cake but so so worth it.