This Christmas cake recipe will go perfectly with a steaming cup of tea this winter.
Christmas cakes are made in many different ways, but they generally fall into the classic fruitcake category. They can be light, dark, moist, dry, heavy, and spongy. They are made in many different shapes, with frosting, royal icing, a dusting of icing sugar, or plain.
The spices and dried fruits in the cake are supposed to represent the exotic eastern spices brought by the three Wise Men to the newborn King. The fruit is soaked overnight in whiskey in a covered bowl before use to add flavor. I always make three of these cakes - one for Christmas Day and the other two to eat every day for tea until then.
This Christmas cake is a lot easier to make than you would imagine, and your friends will love it.
Traditional Irish Christmas Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
Soak these together the night before making your cake:
- 5oz (150g) raisins
- 4½oz (125g) stoned dates
- 4½oz (125g) sultanas
- 4oz (100g) quartered glace cherries
- 4 fl oz (100ml) Irish whiskey
For the day of making your cake:
- 8oz (225g) real butter
- extra butter for greasing
- 7oz (200g) caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- grated rind of one lemon and one orange
- 2 tbsp black treacle (or molasses)
- 8oz (225g) plain (all-purpose) flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 rounded tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp grated nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground clove
- 2oz (50g) ground almonds
- 2 fl oz (50ml) extra Whiskey
Method:
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C), Gas mark 2. Grease an 8" (20cm) cake tin and line it with grease-proof paper. Wrap some newspaper around the outside and tie it with a string. This will help prevent the outside of the cake from browning too much during cooking and from drying out.
Beat together the sugar and butter in a bowl until creamy. Gradually add the eggs, dusting a little flour in with each egg. Add the treacle and grated fruit rinds and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl with the soaked fruit, then add the salt, spices, and almonds. Stir all of this together, mixing well.
Fold the fruit mix into the egg mix, stirring until evenly combined. Spoon the completed mix into the cake tin.
Bake in the center of the oven for 3 hours. If it is browning a little too much, cover it loosely with tinfoil. Cook for another ½ hour. The cake is cooked when a fine skewer, inserted into the center, comes out clean and dry.
Make small holes all over the warm cake with a skewer and spoon the extra 50ml whiskey over the holes until it has all soaked in. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.
When the cake is cold, remove it from the tin, peel off the lining paper, then wrap it first in clean greaseproof paper and then in foil.
A small amount of brandy, sherry, or whiskey (depending on your favorite tipple) should be poured onto the cake every week until Christmas. This process is called “feeding the cake”. You should also turn the cake over each week before you pour another little bit of your favorite tipple over it. This ensures that all that lovely alcohol penetrates to the very middle of the Christmas cake and definitely creates that "Yum!" factor on Christmas Day.
For more from Zack, check out his IrishFoodGuide website or follow him on Twitter @IrishFoodGuide.
* Originally published in December 2014 and updated in Nov 2025.
Comments