Good Housekeeping UK/Kate Whitaker

Tropical Christmas Cake

Traditional dried fruits have been given a Caribbean lift with juicy mango, warming rum and spicy ginger in this Christmas cake recipe.

By The Good Housekeeping Cookery TeamPublished: 17 October 2017

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You’ll need to soak the fruit for this Christmas cake at least a day before baking the cake, so remember to shop for your ingredients in advance.

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Yields:

Prep Time:

15 mins

Cook Time:

1 hr 45 mins

Total Time:

2 hrs

Ingredients

400 g
(14oz) sweet and tangy dried fruit mix
100 g
(3 ½oz) pitted dates finely chopped
100 g
(3 ½oz) dried mango finely chopped
Zest and juice of 1 orange
100 ml
(3 ½ fl oz) spiced rum
1 Tbsp.
vanilla bean paste
175 g
(6oz) unsalted butter, softened, plus extra to grease
175 g
(6oz) dark brown muscovado sugar
3
medium eggs, beaten
175 g
(6oz) plain flour
2 Tbsp.
desiccated coconut
1 tsp.
ground ginger
1 tsp.
cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp.
mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
50 g
(2oz) stem ginger in syrup, chopped (reserve the syrup to

use in desserts)

Directions

1. Step 1
  Put the dried fruit, dates, mango, orange zest and juice, rum and vanilla into a large non-metallic bowl or a food bag. Mix, then cover with clingfilm and leave to soak for at least 24hr, or for up to 2 days.
2. Step 2
  When ready to bake the cake, heat the oven to 150°C (130°C fan) mark 2. Grease and line a 20.5cm (8in) deep round cake tin with baking parchment.
3. Step 3
  Put butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl, and beat with a handheld electric whisk until light and creamy. Gradually whisk in eggs, adding a little flour if the mix begins to split. Fold in the remaining flour, coconut and spices, followed by the stem ginger.
4. Step 4
  Tip in the soaked fruit, stir well, spoon mixture into the tin and level the surface. Bake for 1hr 45min, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin, then remove (keeping it in its parchment paper) and wrap in a double thickness of foil. Store in a cool, dark place to mature for up to 3 months.
5. Step 5
  Feed the cake every 3-4 weeks with 2tbsp spiced rum – to do this, use a skewer to make small holes in the top and bottom of the cake, using 1tbsp for each side. Re-wrap carefully after each addition. Do this up until 1 week before decorating your cake to ensure it has sufficient time to dry out.

Replace the spiced rum with cooled, spiced tea for a non-alcoholic version.

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The Good Housekeeping Cookery Team

An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).

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