Christmas Cake – Traditional British Fruit Cake with Royal Icing

Christmas cake is a traditional British fruit cake covered with marzipan and decorated in royal icing. The recipe can be made months or days in advance for Christmas Day.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking for a delicious and reliable, easy to use recipe for Christmas cake.

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I can assure you that this Christmas cake recipe is solid because it is based on Mrs. Beeton’s festive fruit cake for the holiday. If you don’t know who Mrs. Beeton is, think of her as the Victorian “Julia Child” of England. Her recipes are often the quintessential bases for British dishes, and I refer to them often.

Find some British Christmas cookies/biscuits here

I use Mrs. Beeton to provide you with authentic, British recipes which is important to me. This is a delicious fruitcake, not like those stodgy, awful fruitcakes people are afraid of receiving at Christmastime! I recommend that you stop searching because this recipe is the real (British) deal. 🇬🇧

As a little girl in Scotland, I used to only eat the royal icing off Christmas cakes and wedding cakes, but now I can appreciate more than just the icing!

What is Christmas Cake?

Christmas cake is a traditional British fruit cake that is usually made weeks or months before December and doused with a spirit, such as brandy. About a week before Christmas it is covered in jam and marzipan, then decorated with royal icing, which dries stiff. It is similar to a traditional wedding cake in the UK.

What is the Traditional Christmas Cake Called?

The current answer on Google is incorrect, so I must fix that here: traditional Christmas cake is just called “Christmas cake” in the UK. There is no special name for it. 

Mixed up between Christmas cake and Christmas pudding? They’re quite different.

How Soon Before Christmas can I Make my Cake?

You can make a Christmas cake up to three months before Christmas, provided you store it properly. I would also recommend “feeding” the cake (with your choice of alcohol, like brandy). See recipe below for details.

Here’s another classic Christmas cake: a yule log!

Let’s get baking!

 

Christmas Cake 
Traditional British Fruit Cake with Royal Icing

slightly adapted from Mrs. Beeton’s                   makes one 8″ cake

FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE BELOW

Ingredients

• flour
• salt
• mixed spice
• butter
• sugar
• eggs
• brandy 
• glacé cherries
• candied/preserved ginger
• walnuts (optional)
• currants
• sultanas
• raisins
• mixed peel (or fresh orange peel with sugar – see below)

For the decoration

• apricot jam
• marzipan (almond paste)
• royal icing

Special equipment: springform pan, aluminum foil, metal clip or non plastic paperclip. I highly recommend a kitchen scale for the best results.

Preheat oven to 325F (160C)

Prepare the Tin

Line and grease an 8″/20cm round cake pan (I used a springform pan). 

Make the Cake Batter

Sift the flour salt and spice into a bowl. Prep all the dried fruit and nut ingredients by weighing and placing in bowls to make the cake making easier. Beat the eggs in a large jug.

Cream the room temperature butter and sugar together in a large bowl (preferably a stand mixer) until light and fluffy (it will change consistency, so don’t stop too early). Add about a third of the beaten eggs and mix well.

Add about a third of the flour and continue to mix. Add the rest of the beaten eggs. Note: the reason not to add all the eggs at once and to intersperse the flour is to stop the batter from curdling.

This is the blended orange peel and sugar which adds a wonderful orange flavor to the cake. If you don’t like mixed peel, this is a much better option. (Place an organic orange peel into a mini food processor with 2 teaspoons of sugar and blend until it looks like the photo above). 

Now add the rest of the flour and the cherries, candied ginger, walnuts, currants, golden raisins (sultanas), raisins and the mixed peel (or sugared orange rind). Mix well until all the ingredients are evenly incorporated.

Bake the Cake

Put the batter into the prepared baking pan.

Make a slight indentation in the middle of the batter. This helps the cake to bake evenly.

Wrap a ring of aluminum foil (folded in half), so that it is about 2″ above the rim of the pan and clip to hold together with a metal paper clip or one as in the photo above. Bake for 45 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 300F (150C) and continue to bake for another 50 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature once more to 275F (140C) and bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until a cake tester or skewer comes out clean. The cake should be firm when pressed.

Remove from the oven and cool in the pan.

Store/Feed the Cake

Depending on when you make the cake, you can “feed” it with brandy (or even sherry, or whisky) every two weeks or so. If you have made it weeks in advance of Christmas, I would advise adding some spirit. You can poke the cake with a thin skewer or simply spoon the brandy all over the top of the cake (2 or 3 tablespoonfuls is adequate). Do this after the cake has cooled, then continue until two weeks before Christmas.

Cover the cake with parchment paper and keep in a sealed tin in a cool, dark place.

Brush with Jam & Marzipan the Cake (A Week Before Christmas)

A week before you want to serve the Christmas cake, brush the entire cake lightly with some heated apricot jam (that has been put through a sieve to remove skin and pulp) or light colored jelly. 

It should just look glazed. This helps the marzipan/almond paste to stick to the cake.

Place the almond paste (I bought mine, but you can make it with this marzipan recipe) on a countertop dusted with some powdered sugar.

Roll out so that it’s thin enough to cover the entire cake. 

Use the rolling pin to help transfer the paste over the cake and press gently to adhere to the surface of the Christmas cake.

Trim off the extra pieces at the bottom and use a cake lifter to pick up the cake.

Transfer the cake onto the serving plate or board.

Ice and Decorate 

Make this royal icing recipe from Noshtastic using meringue powder (safer than using egg whites in the US).

Ice the top and sides of the Christmas cake. 

There’s no need to use cake decorating tools or a piping bag (unless you want to) if you just cover the entire cake with royal icing then lift the knife off to create lots of peaks.

It’s super easy and simple to do, and looks like little peaks of snow.

It’s absolutely fine if you finish it like this, but if you like, you can do a little piping at the bottom. 

It looks a bit more finished this way.

Add decorations as desired, like little dragées, but do so before the royal icing dries. If you’ve never used royal icing before, it sets hard, unlike other icings.

How to Cut a Christmas Cake (or Fruitcake)

Don’t ever cut a fruitcake into wedges as you would a sponge cake as no one can eat a huge slice of this cake! Each serving should be a very small slice as it’s very heavy and rich. Using a bread knife, slice the cake right down the middle into two halves.

Cut another time to remove a long slice through the middle of the cake, place on a board and cut into fingers. You should get about 6 small slices from the very center slice of the cake. When finished cutting, push the two halves back together to keep it moist and store in a tin.

Serve on a festive plate with a fork, although I won’t blame you if it never reaches the plate!

🎄 Merry Christmas to you and yours!🎄

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