Heap Family Christmas Cake Recipes

Steps:

• Combine currants, raisins, sultana raisins, and candied cherries in a plastic container with a lid. Pour brandy over dried fruit; stir in orange and lemon zest. Close container and set aside to soak for 2 to 3 days. Stir or shake container every few hours as you remember.
• Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with 24 cupcake cases or lightly grease 24 ramekins.
• Combine 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter and 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined. Add eggs and molasses and beat well. Stir in all-purpose flour, self-rising flour, almonds, and mixed spice until well combined. Fold in almonds and soaked fruit; mix well. Spoon mixture into the prepared cases or ramekins.
• Bake in the preheated oven on the center rack until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cake comes out clean, about 90 minutes. Allow to cool in their cases.
• Store in airtight tins or wrap them tightly in greaseproof paper and aluminum foil for at least 10 days before decorating.
• Heat jam in the microwave for 10 seconds until warmed and brush onto each cake.
• Roll out marzipan between 2 sheets of plastic wrap. Cut out circles with a round cookie cutter or a glass with the same diameter as the cakes. Arrange marzipan circles on top of the jam on each mini fruitcake. Store fruitcakes in an airtight container before finishing the final decoration, 8 hours to overnight.
• Roll out white fondant between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and cut out circles with the same diameter as the cakes. Press a cookie stencil with a snowflake pattern onto the fondant circles. Color in the snowflake pattern with blue food coloring using a small brush and place on top of the marzipan layer. Repeat with remaining cakes.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla, lime juice, and lime zest. Add the eggs 1 at a time, and incorporate well. Combine bread crumbs, flour, all the spices, baking powder, and salt. Combine rum and port. Add flour mixture alternately with rum/port mixture into the batter. Fold in the chopped marinated fruit.
• Prepare 1 (9-inch) cake pan or 2 spring form pans by lining bottom and sides with parchment paper. Fill the pan 3/4 of the way and bake until a skewer comes out of the center of the cake clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
• Put raisins, prunes, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla beans in a glass jar and cover with mixture of equal parts Jamaican white rum, Jamaican spiced rum, and Port. Cover with a tight fitting lid, label, and date the jar. Put in a cool, dry cupboard. From time to time, check the fruits to see if more liquor is needed, as the fruits will plump and soak up the liquid.
• Keep the fruit covered in liquor. It is best to allow the fruit to marinate for at least 1 month for best flavor.

Steps:

• Put all the dried fruit, the mixed peel and citrus zests in a large bowl, the pour over the brandy. Stir, cover and leave to soak overnight.
• The next day, heat the oven to 150C/130C fan/gas 2. Line the base and side of a deep 23cm cake tin with a double layer of baking parchment, so it comes a few centimetres above the rim.
• Beat the butter, sugar and treacle together in a large bowl using an electric whisk, until pale and creamy. Alternatively, use a stand mixer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl every so often. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a separate bowl, then stir this into the wet ingredients along with the ground almonds until combined.
• Stir in the rehydrated fruit along with the soaking liquid, then spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level the surface with the back of a spoon. Bake for 2 hrs 25 mins-2 hrs 30 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.If the cake starts to darken too quickly, cover with foil.
• Leave to cool completely in the tin, then prick small holes all over the surface using a cocktail stick or skewer and brush over a little brandy. Wrap the cake in baking parchment, then a sheet of foil. Store in an airtight container and feed the cake with 1-2 tbsp brandy each week for three or four weeks, stopping the week before you want to ice it. Will keep in a cool, dry place for six months.

Steps:

• Grease and line a glass 2pt basin or use a plastic basin with a ready made lid.
• Soak the orange and lemon rind, grated carrot, cherries and fruit in the spirits for at least an hour, but preferably overnight.
• Mix together the suet, flour, sugar, mixed spice and breadcrumbs.
• Add this to the fruit mix, and beat in 2 eggs.
• Transfer this to the basin, leaving an inch at the top.
• Cover the top of the basin with baking parchment and use the plastic lid or a double layer of foil.
• Steam over a low heat (watching carefully so that it doesn't run out of water!) or in a slow cooker for 7 hours. Alternatively cook for 5 hours when you make it, and then for a further 2 on Christmas day to warm up.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 150C (300F / Gas mark 2) and line a deep 9 inch (23cm) square tin with a double layer of baking parchment (this should protrude over the top of the edges of the tin).
• Melt the butter over the stove, and mix in the pineapple, mixed fruit, cherries and sugar. These should be kept over a high heat until the mixture begins to boil, and the sugar is completely dissolved. This can take 5 minutes.
• Cool the mixture until it is look warm (or else the eggs will scramble).
• Sift together the two kinds of flour and mixed spice.
• Beat the eggs and the flour mixture into the sugar-fruit mixture.
• Transfer the entire mixture into the lined tin.
• Cut a double piece of brown paper the same size as the tin to act as a lid, with a small air vent in the centre.
• Wrap the outside of the tin in a double layer of baking parchment. This will help to stop the cake from catching.
• Bake for 3 hours (and skewer test to check it is completely done - the skewer should come out clean).