Caribbean Christmas Cake

Name: Caribbean Christmas Cake
Yield: Makes 1 cake
Cuisine: Americas
Ingredients: 250 g (9 oz) currants; 250 g (9oz) self-raising flour; 250 g (9 oz) raisins; 115 g (4 oz) cut mixed peel; 300 ml (½ pint) dark rum, plus 4 tbsp extra for soaking the cake; 150 g (5½ oz) no-soak pitted prunes, quartered; 20–24 no-soak pitted prunes; 16–20 no-soak stoned apricots; 1 tbsp dark rum; 250 g (9 oz) softened butter, plus extra for greasing; 200 g (7 oz) dark soft brown sugar; 50 g blanched almonds; 5 free range eggs, lightly beaten; 9–12 no-soak dried figs; 1½ tsp ground mixed spice; 1 tsp vanilla extrart; 4 tbsp apricot jam; 16–24 glacé cherries, coloured if liked; 50 g (1¾ oz) blanched almonds, roughly chopped (leave lots of big chunks)

Preparation info

Makes
1
cake

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Caribbean Food Made Easy

By Levi Roots

Published 2009

About

We have this every Christmas. The best bit is when you add in all the rum and let the fruit soak for days, knowing it’s going to taste so good. This is quite dark in colour and also called black cake, because it used to be made with burnt sugar.

Ingredients

250 g (9 oz) currants
250 g (9

Americas
Dessert
Christmas
Vegetarian

Method

Put the dried fruit and mixed peel in a saucepan and cover with rum. Bring to the boil, stir, then immediately turn off the heat. Cover and leave the fruit to macerate in the rum either overnight or up to 2 days, stirring from time to time.
Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3