Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities (24 page)

GOLD-DUST COOKIES

CHRISTMAS MORNING MUFFINS

CHRISTMAS CUPCAKES

There are a number of ways you can tackle the icing, and I will start with the more traditional; it seems fitting here. Some of the cakes below carry with them their own suggestions for decorating, but any of the methods here can be used for the first 3 cakes.

I love a plain white-iced cake: smooth icing, wrapping the cake almost like a hatbox. I am happy to have this decorated, but I’d just as soon the decorations were also white. I cut out bits of leftover rolled-out icing, using my snowflake or star cookie cutter, and perhaps throw a few silver baubles around, too. But play as you wish: red and green roll-out icing can be used to exuberantly Christmassy effect and wherever you buy the blocks of readymade, ready-to-roll icing or coloured sugar paste (see Stockists) you should be able to get a holly leaf cutter, and it’s not difficult to roll little bits into berries. If you are more dextrous than I am (not hard), you can be more adventurous. I long to bake a square cake and ice it like a present, but simple though I’m told this is, I know it’s beyond me.

However, I have tried to get a bit artistic and have used white icing, cutting out a wibbly-wobbly hillscape and some trees and a star with my cookie cutters. The partially iced cake doesn’t last as well as a fully covered one, but has a dramatic prettiness, if such is not a contradiction in terms.

If you want icing that gives the traditional snowy effect, I can also accommodate you. You still have to roll out the marzipan – and for what it’s worth, I like yellow marzipan under the smooth icing, and white marzipan here – but the icing just needs to be whipped up, slapped on with a spatula and forked around to create the spikey effect that we all accept as snowy. This is the icing to go for if you have Christmas ornaments – a dinky sleigh, fir trees and reindeer, a red-breasted robin, or the whole, thronging nativity scene – stashed away in a cupboard or in the loft, ready to be brought out each year and put lovingly on top.

Finally, I am very fond of a topping more than an icing, and one that is not particularly British, but is the traditional way of decorating fruit cakes in Italy and America: and this is just a glaze-slicked mounding of nuts and candied fruits. Because the fruit is so sticky, it’s not enormously less fiddly than the icing in the first two methods – and is more expensive – but it requires less dexterity and patience, and still looks beautiful. (It won’t, however, keep the cake from drying out, as the layers of marzipan and sugar-icing do.) And a cake that has only a topping can look “finished” by having a ribbon tied or pinned around it. Understatement is not the order of the day at this time of the year, after all.

I don’t think I ever make my Traditional Christmas cake bigger than 18cm in diameter, as a little goes a long way, and you really don’t want it sitting on a table gathering dust in January. However, the amounts of ingredients for the icings below should be enough to stretch to a 23cm cake. If you’re going big-time with a 25.5cm cake or more, then add half again to the ingredients.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

The marzipan should have about 1 week to dry out before the icing goes on, otherwise the oils from the fruit cake gradually seep out and stain the icing. It’s fine to marzipan and ice together if you’re doing it one or two days before eating, but if you want to prepare the cake in the weeks running up to Christmas, the marzipan needs to be done first and dried out.

ABOVE:

Variations on Smooth Hatbox Icing (top left, top right and bottom right)

Snowscene Icing (bottom left)

SNOWSCENE ICING

200g rindless marmalade or smooth apricot jam

500g marzipan

1 × 500g packet instant royal icing (see

Stockists

)

icing sugar for dusting

• Follow the method for Smooth Hatbox Icing below only up to the point where the cake is covered with a neat layer of marzipan.

• Then make up the instant royal icing with cold water, as directed on the packet, and whisk until it is thick and gleamingly bulked up, so that it holds its shape if you try to make a peak with a teaspoon. Pile the icing over the cake with a spatula, to cover it completely, before forking to leave a rough snowy cover.

• Adorn with your treasured Christmas-cake decorations and leave to dry and set.

SMOOTH HATBOX ICING

200g rindless marmalade, or smooth apricot jam

500g marzipan

1kg ready-to-roll icing (more if you want different colourways)

icing sugar for dusting

• Warm the marmalade in a small saucepan over a low to medium heat. (If you are not using a rindless marmalade or smooth apricot jam, when it’s hot and runny, strain into a bowl to remove rind or pips.)

• Place the cake on a cake board or cake stand and, with a pastry brush, paint the warm marmalade or jam all over the sides and the top of the cake to make a tacky surface.

• Dust a work surface with icing sugar, roll out the marzipan till it’s about 2.5mm thick (don’t be fanatical; you just want a supple and pliable layer) and drape over the cake. Then press the marzipan cloak against the cake so it covers it smoothly and cut off the excess with a sharp knife. If you find it easier to roll out two lots of 250g marzipan, that’s fine, but be sure to smooth over any joins, so the icing will lie smoothly on top.

• Dust the work surface again with icing sugar and plonk down your block of icing. Beat it a few times with the rolling pin, then dust the top with icing sugar and roll out patiently until it’s about 3mm thick.

• Cover the cake with it, cutting off the excess. If you need to stick bits together to patch up any breaks, sprinkle with cold water first; the water fuses breaks magically together.

• Cut out the shapes you want – stars, snowflakes, holly trees or ivy leaves – from leftover bits of icing and dibble or brush the undersides with cold water to stick them on to the cake.

GLOSSY FRUIT AND NUT TOPPING

I tend to order my glacé fruits online from France (see Stockists) but around Christmastime, you tend to find them easily enough in the shops. The range is enormous, and it’s up to you to decide how broad to make your choice.

8 teaspoons smooth apricot jam

175g assorted glacé fruits, about 3 whole fruits plus small handful glacé cherries

25g blanched almonds, whole

25g pecan halves

• Spoon the apricot jam into a little saucepan, add a tablespoon of water, heat gently, stirring to make a molten glaze, then take off the heat to cool it a little.

• Paint the top of the cake with the apricot glaze, and decorate with the fruits and nuts of your choice – I find it easier to cut the fruits into pieces and fit everything together like a jigsaw puzzle.

• When the top is completely covered in glacé fruits and nuts – although if you’re going for a big cake, just pile the fruit and nuts in the centre, leaving a frame of plain cake all around – paint a second coat of apricot glaze over the top to give a glossy finish.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Decorate the cake with the fruit and nut topping up to 1 week ahead. Wrap a band of foil or ribbon around the cake to protect the sides. Store in an airtight container.

GORGEOUSLY GOLDEN FRUIT CAKE

This is the fruity blonde sister to the brunette temptress (next recipe). It delivers, as promised, a cake of apricot-pear-and-ginger goldenness and goodness, so squidgy and fresh-tasting, which comes perhaps not only from the amount of fruit in it, but also the lack of flour: this is a gluten-free treat for the greedy; fruit cake with the emphasis firmly on the first word.

The lack of flour makes for an exquisitely damp cake, but it does mean that unless you cut it into quite fat slices, it can break into fruity pieces rather than geometrically precise triangles. This is why it tastes so good of course. And, what’s more, it makes a fantastic pudding at the end of a seasonal supper.

I do a Dundee cake-type studding of the top with blanched almonds before baking, so there is no need to ice it or adorn further.

Makes 10 fat slices

350g dried pears

250g dried apricots

250g golden sultanas (see

Stockists

)

175g soft butter

200g sugar

125ml white rum

200g ginger jam or preserve (or use marmalade)

225g ground almonds

35g sesame seeds or mixture of sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds

seeds from 3 cardamom pods

¼ teaspoon ground coriander

3 eggs

FOR THE TOPPING:

75g whole blanched almonds

• Roughly scissor the pears and apricots into small pieces and put them into a saucepan with the sultanas, butter, sugar, rum and ginger jam or preserve, or indeed marmalade.

• Simmer for 10 minutes and then leave to stand for about 30 minutes.

• Preheat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2. Line the bottom and sides of a 20cm high-sided tin with a double layer of Bake-O-Glide or regular baking parchment; the lining should extend about 10cm above – and see the instructions for the Traditional Christmas Cake if you want a more precise, step-by-step guide to the whole lining fandango.

• Stir the ground almonds, sesame seeds (or a mixture), cardamom seeds and coriander into the cooled saucepan. Beat in the eggs and spoon into the prepared cake tin, smoothing the top.

• Starting in the middle, work in concentric circles as you place the blanched almonds on top of the cake batter in decorative rings (rather like a Dundee cake).

• Bake for 1 hour 40 minutes, then leave to cool completely in the tin. Once cool, take out of the tin, wrap with baking parchment then foil, before stashing it away in its cake tin or other airtight container. Though, unlike a traditional fruit cake, it doesn’t need to stand before being divinely edible.

GLUTEN-FREE CAKE

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the cake up to 1 week ahead and wrap in a double layer of greaseproof paper and then a layer of foil. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Make the cake and wrap as above. Freeze for up to 1 month. To thaw, unwrap the cake and thaw overnight at room temperature. Rewrap and store as above until needed.

INCREDIBLY EASY CHOCOLATE FRUIT CAKE

I think it’s hard to improve on this cake: dark, damp, squidgy and luscious; you don’t taste the chocolate full-on – the cocoa just leaves a hint of smokey richness. Nor, I should add, do you taste the prunes. When I was making this cake for my TV programme, the cameraman, Wee Nev (Neville Kidd, the eminent DOP, for all IMDb-addicts) said with force “Eugh, I HATE prunes!” But when he ate it, later, he proclaimed it to be the best Christmas cake he’d ever had. And he asked for the recipe so that he could ask his wife to make it for Christmas. I don’t mean to crow; it sounds so undignified. But it’s important that you know how universally seductive this cake is, for all that it starts off “350g prunes”.

I don’t know what it is in the prunes that gives the cake its damp bounciness; all I know is that it works. You don’t need to make this in advance, although you can, and you don’t have to do anything much to make it, either. You just melt everything together, give or take, in a saucepan, pour from saucepan to cake tin and bake. It needs no icing, though I have suggested – if you need help with stockists see here – a little festive decoration, below.

And there’s no reason why you couldn’t vary this method to make a Plain Dark Fruit Cake: just replace the Tia Maria with rum (or brandy if you prefer), making up the sweetness by adding a heaped tablespoon of marmalade; take out the cocoa, adding 2 tablespoons of flour to the 150g; and decorate with a sprig of holly or any of the suggestions below.

Makes at least 10 generous slices

350g prunes, scissored or chopped

250g raisins

175g currants

175g soft butter

175g dark muscovado sugar

225g (175ml) honey

125ml Tia Maria or other coffee liqueur

juice and finely grated zest of 2 oranges

1 teaspoon mixed spice

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

3 eggs, beaten

150g plain flour

75g ground almonds

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

FOR DECORATION (see Stockists):

25g dark chocolate-covered coffee beans

approx. 10 edible gold stars

edible gold mini balls

edible glitter, in Disco Hologram gold

• Preheat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2 and prepare a 20cm × 9cm deep, round, loose-bottomed cake tin by lining the bottom and sides with a double layer of baking parchment, as for the Traditional Christmas Cake (though I find that if you use one layer of that tough, reusable silicone baking parchment, my beloved Bake-O-Glide, it does the job well enough, and as the cake is so dark, you don’t see if it catches a little).

• Put the fruits, butter, sugar, honey, Tia Maria, orange juice and zests, spice and cocoa powder into a large, wide saucepan and gently bring to the boil, stirring as the butter melts.

• Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to stand for 30 minutes.

• When the 30 minutes are up – it will have cooled a little, but you can leave it for longer if you want – add the beaten eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula to combine.

• Pour the fruit cake mixture into the prepared cake tin. Place in the oven and bake for 1¾–2 hours, by which time the top of the cake should be firm but will have a shiny, sticky look. If you insert a cake tester or skewer into it, the cake will still be a little gooey in the middle.

• Put the cake, still in its tin, on a wire cooling rack – it will hold its heat and take a while to cool; once cool, take it out of the tin and, if you don’t want to eat it immediately (like any fruit cake it has a long life), wrap it in baking parchment or greaseproof paper then in foil and store in a cake or other airtight tin.

• To decorate, though this is optional, place the chocolate-covered coffee beans in the centre of the cake and arrange the gold stars around the perimeter of the top. Then sprinkle some gold mini-balls over the whole cake, and the edible glitter over the top, not minding that you will be a-glitter yourself for a while.