Last minute Christmas cake recipe

A traditional fruitcake that adorns many-a-Christmas table at this time of year, Christmas cake is a time-honoured festive tradition. Christmas cake started life as plum porridge, before the recipe segued into one full of rum-soaked currants, sultanas and raisins. Various traditions and geographical variations sprang up throughout the ages, from sixpence pieces baked into the cakes, to Christmas cakes in Yorkshire eaten with Wensleydale cheese.

Christmas cakes around the world take many forms too. In Sri Lanka, Christmas cakes are sweetened with treacle and spiced with cinnamon and black pepper. Japanese Christmas cake is actually sponge cake topped with whipped cream, strawberries and chocolates. In the United States, some people give fruitcakes as gifts at Christmas-time, but they don’t actually call them Christmas cakes!

It is common for Christmas cakes to be made weeks or months in advance so that the fruits and spices baked into the cake have time to mature. During the maturing period, Christmas cakes are also fed with rum or brandy at regular intervals, creating a deeply moist and rich cake by Christmas Day.

But that’s not the only way to make a delicious Christmas cake. When there’s not much time to spare before Christmas, here’s a last-minute Christmas cake recipe to save the day!