Mrs Doyle's Irish Christmas cakes are made in lots of different ways, all with lots of love and in general they are variations on the old fashioned fruitcake. They are very tasty, and they can be light, dark, a little moist, a little dry, sometimes heavy, and even sometimes spongy . Mrs Doyle's Irish Christmas cakes are made in many different shapes, sometimes with a little with frosting, or a dusting of icing sugar and of course they can be as simple and plain as you like .
So what are the special ingredients and what do they represent? well the dried fruits in the cake may represent the fantastic eastern spices which the three Wise Men brought to t
he newborn King! And remember just to make things a little more interesting the fruits are sometimes soaked overnight in Irish whiskey.
So what are the ingredients of Mrs Doyle's Christmas cakes ? ok here it comes , now remember , this cake only tastes great if you enjoy it with friends and family and a nice cup of decent Irish tea for everyone !
My Christmas Cake Ingredients:
100ml Irish whiskey
quarter of table spoon of ground clove
50g ground almonds
grated rind of 1 lemon & 1 orange
150g raisins
125g stoned dates
quarter of a block of real Irish butter
125g sultanas
100g glace cherries
extra butter for greasing
200g soft brown sugar
4 eggs
grated rind of 1 lemon & 1 orange
2 table spoons of black treacle
225g plain flour
half a table spoon of salt
1 rounded table spoon of baking powder
1 table spoon of mixed spice
quarter of teaspoon of grated nutmeg
grated nutmeg and a little few teaspoons of Irish whiskey
My Method:
You should Preheat the oven to 150°C (300°F), around Gas mark.
Now grease a 20cm cake tin and then line it with greaseproof paper. Next wrap some newspaper around the outside of your cake tin with string. This should help the outside of the cake from going too brown during the cooking and so help it from drying out.
Now it's time to beat together in a big bowl all that lovely sugar & butter until its all very creamy. Next add the eggs, add a little flour in with each egg, and some treacle and perhaps a few grated fruit rinds and make sure you mix all for a few minutes.
it's time to stir the flour and baking powder into the bowl of all these lovely soaked fruits and add some salt, some spices and a few almonds, again stir all of these great ingredients together and mix well.
Now fold the fruit mix into the amazing egg mix, stir it all evenly. Now spoon the mix into the big cake tin, and maybe pull a little bit back in the middle of the cake , this will help as it rises, it will level itself off perfectly.
So Bake in the oven for 3 hours. If it is browning a lot , then cover it loosely with some tin foil. Now cook for another 30 minutes. You will know the cake is ready if you insert a fine skewer into the middle of the cake , and it comes out clean and really dry.
Now it's time to leave the cake to cool in the tin.
When the cake is cool, you can remove it from the tin, take off the lining paper, and wrap it first in clean greaseproof paper and then in tinfoil.
Here is the secret! do all this in November and each week leading up to Christmas, pour another little bit of your favourite drink over it. This will help the alcohol to penetrate to the Christmas cake and will make it taste so Irish Go On Go!
here's a hint for the perfect Irish gift to send to some one you love or may be a self gift ? yes go on try a Mrs Doyle's Irish Christmas breakfast hamper for everyone to enjoy with your Christmas cake , you can check out just how good Mrs Doyle's tea is vs Barry's ! no competition at all !
