Olivia Potts

A last-minute alternative to Christmas cake: boiled fruit cake

[Illustration by Natasha Lawson] 
issue 17 December 2022

This time last year, I was disgustingly well organised. Awaiting the arrival of my first baby, with a late December due date, I’d ensured everything was squirrelled or squared away. I’d bought all my presents by October, wrapped them by December; I’d made my Christmas cakes and bought my Terry’s Chocolate Orange. For the first time in my life, I sent Christmas cards to everyone in my address book. I’d even made and frozen the gravy weeks in advance. It was my way of nesting – the baby could arrive when it liked. I was prepared.

It can feel that every homemade edible component of Christmas demands commitment: puddings, cakes, mincemeat, it should all be made wildly in advance, and given time to mature. Well, that level of forward-planning has gone out of the window. I now have a nearly one-year-old, who is tearing around like a wind-up terrapin, and I’m juggling him, work and general life admin.  Even if I’d had the wherewithal to start my Christmas cake months ago, the chances of me remembering to feed it are slim.

Luckily, there is another answer. Its name may not commend it to you – it’s also sometimes called a ‘simmer and stir’ cake – but a boiled fruit cake makes up for lost time.

It will, incidentally, smell fantastic, as if you have magicked up the spirit of Christmas in your kitchen

It’s a simple concept, really: before baking, the dried fruit is simmered together with quite a bit of fruit juice and booze, dark sugars, treacle and butter, for just ten minutes, gently bubbling and blooping away – by which time the fruit will be plump and glossy, soft and moist. It will, incidentally, smell fantastic, as if you have magicked up the spirit of Christmas in your kitchen.

But most importantly, it doesn’t need to be made in advance, and doesn’t need feeding once baked and cooled.

Olivia Potts
Written by
Olivia Potts
Olivia Potts is a former criminal barrister who retrained as a pastry chef. She co-hosts The Spectator’s Table Talk podcast and writes Spectator Life's The Vintage Chef column. A chef and food writer, she was winner of the Fortnum and Mason's debut food book award in 2020 for her memoir A Half Baked Idea.

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