Christmas Cake

My family tends to have a Dundee cake as our Christmas cake, but here’s the more usual item. This dark and elaborate fruitcake is supposed to be made weeks before the holiday and “fed” brandy or whiskey every week. If you can keep up with the demands of feeding a cake, you’re rewarded with complex flavors like a fine, aged wine. It’s meant to be finished off with a layer of marzipan, then sealed with a glossy finish of hard royal icing, and, in the days af