Four Ingredient Christmas Cake
The easiest traditional Christmas fruit cake that is rich, deliciously moist and made with just FOUR ingredients!
Servings: 24
Equipment
- 2 20cm (8 inch) deep round cake tin
Ingredients
- 1 kg mixed dried fruit either a bag of mixed dried fruit, or your own combination of fruits and/or nuts
- 395 g tin sweetened condensed milk
- ¾ cup Baileys Irish cream
- 300 g Self raising flour
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the mixed dried fruit, sweetened condensed milk and Baileys Irish cream, along with ½ cup of water.
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight *see notes
- After soaking the fruit, remove it from the fridge and stir again. Let it sit until it comes to room temperature
- While the mixture comes to room temperature, preheat your oven to 150°C/300°F, then spray your 20cm cake tin and line it with baking paper.
- Add the self-raising flour to the fruit mixture and fold through until combined
- Pour batter into prepared cake tin and smooth over with a silicone spatula or offset spatula
- Wrap a double strip of brown paper around the outside of the cake tin and secure it with kitchen string *see notes
- Bake the cake for 2 hours, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean
- Remove cake from the oven and allow it to cool inside the tin. Once cooled, it can be wrapped in the baking paper and then 2 layers of tightly wrapped foil.
- Cake can be eaten straight away, or stored sealed in paper and foil for a few months
Notes
- soaking the fruit: the mixture can be soaked overnight or longer. I soak my cake for around a week and make it whenever I get a chance.
- brown paper used as a collar around your fruit cake tin prevents the cake from drying out during the long cooking time. You can use a peg or clip to hold the paper onto the tin while you tie the kitchen string. Be sure to remove the peg after tying the string
- I like to keep my cake simple and just tie a Christmas ribbon around it
- use fondant or gingerbread figures to decorate, or cover the cake with fondant.
- insert rosemary sprigs (upside down) to create Christmas trees, then dust with icing sugar for snow