Mary Berry’s Christmas cake is a rich, dark fruit cake made with currants, sultanas, raisins, glacé cherries, dried apricots and candied peel, soaked overnight in brandy, baked at 140°C (120°C fan) for about 4½ hours. It should be made months in advance and fed with brandy at intervals to let it mature.
Berry calls this recipe “virtually foolproof” in the Baking Bible (2010), and she’s worked out quantities for every tin size so there’s no guesswork. Her key warning is blunt: “The biggest mistake with rich fruit cakes is to overbake them. They shouldn’t be too dark. They will become darker as they are fed with brandy and left to mature.”
The detail most people miss is soaking the fruit overnight. Berry doesn’t just tip the brandy in on the day. She mixes the prepared fruit with 3 tablespoons of brandy the night before, covers it and leaves it in a cool place. That overnight soak plumps the fruit and distributes the brandy evenly through the cake.
Mary Berry Christmas Cake Recipe
Course: DessertCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy8
servings30
minutes4
hours385
kcalBerry’s Classic Rich Christmas Cake from the Baking Bible (2010), a traditional dark fruit cake soaked in brandy, baked low and slow, then fed and stored for up to three months. Finished with almond paste and fondant icing.
Ingredients
100g (4 oz) glacé cherries, quartered, rinsed and dried
100g (4 oz) ready-to-eat dried apricots, snipped into pieces
275g (10 oz) currants
175g (6 oz) sultanas
175g (6 oz) raisins
50g (2 oz) finely chopped candied peel
3 tablespoons brandy, plus extra for feeding
225g (8 oz) plain flour
¼ level teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ level teaspoon ground mixed spice
225g (8 oz) softened butter
225g (8 oz) dark muscovado sugar
4 large eggs
50g (2 oz) chopped almonds
1 scant tablespoon black treacle
grated rind of 1 lemon
grated rind of 1 orange
Directions
- Soak the fruit: The night before baking, cut the cherries into quarters, rinse under running water and drain well. Snip the apricots into pieces. Measure all the fruits into a large bowl, mix in the brandy, cover and leave in a cool place overnight.
- Prepare the tin: Pre-heat the oven to 140°C/120°C fan/Gas 1. Grease a 20cm (8 in) deep round cake tin then line the base and sides with a double layer of baking parchment.
- Mix the cake: Measure the flour, spices, butter, sugar, eggs, almonds, treacle and lemon and orange rinds into a large bowl. Beat well, then fold in the soaked fruits. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and spread out evenly with the back of a spoon. Cover the top of the cake loosely with a double layer of baking parchment.
- Bake: Bake for about 4½–4¾ hours or until the cake feels firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.
- Feed and store: When cool, pierce the cake at intervals with a fine skewer and feed with a little brandy. Wrap the completely cold cake in a double layer of baking parchment, and again in foil, and store in a cool place for up to 3 months, feeding at intervals with more brandy. Don’t remove the lining parchment when storing as this helps to keep the cake moist.
- Ice the cake: Cover with almond paste about a week before icing. Then cover with fondant or ready-to-roll icing and decorate as you wish.
FAQs
What if I don’t have months to mature the cake?
Berry includes a Fast Christmas Cake in the Ultimate Cake Book (2003) for exactly this problem. It uses a 400g jar of mincemeat as a shortcut alongside self-raising flour, light muscovado sugar and currants. It bakes at 160°C for about 1¾ hours and can be iced straight away with no feeding required.
The mincemeat brings the spice, fruit and moisture that would normally come from months of brandy feeding. I’ve made it in December when time ran away from me, and it holds up well. It’s lighter than the classic but perfectly respectable.
What is the difference between Berry’s Christmas cake versions?
Berry has three distinct Christmas cakes across her books. The Classic Rich version here from the Baking Bible (2010) is the darkest and most traditional, using plain flour, dark muscovado sugar, black treacle and brandy. It needs months of maturing.
Her Victorian Christmas Cake in the same book is much lighter, using self-raising flour, caster sugar, glacé cherries and canned pineapple instead of currants and treacle. It bakes for just 2¼ hours at 160°C and is decorated with glacé fruit and a drizzle of icing rather than marzipan and royal icing. The Christmas Collection (2013) has a third version, the Classic Victorian, which uses sherry instead of brandy and needs 3 days of fruit soaking.
Can I use sherry instead of brandy?
Berry herself uses sherry in her Classic Victorian Christmas Cake in the Christmas Collection (2013), so yes. She soaks the fruit in 150ml of sherry for 3 days before baking, which is longer than the overnight brandy soak in this recipe. Sherry gives a rounder, less sharp flavour than brandy.
One thing to note from that recipe: Berry says the cake must be made “at least 3 weeks ahead of Christmas, for if eaten too early it is crumbly.” The sherry needs time to mellow into the crumb.
How do I know when the cake is done without overbaking?
Berry gives two tests. First, the cake should feel firm to the touch on top. Second, a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. She warns in the Baking Bible to cover the top loosely with a double layer of baking parchment before baking, which protects it from browning too quickly over 4½ hours.
I check the cake at 4 hours and again at 4½. If the skewer comes out with damp crumbs rather than wet batter, give it another 15 minutes. The lining parchment on top is doing the heavy lifting here, so don’t skip it.
How should I store the cake between feeds?
Berry is specific about this. Wrap in a double layer of baking parchment first, then foil over the top. She says not to remove the lining parchment from baking because it helps keep the cake moist. Store in a cool place, not the fridge, for up to 3 months.
Feed the cake every 2-3 weeks by piercing the top with a fine skewer and spooning over a tablespoon of brandy. Berry alternates feeding the top and bottom in her Tiny Fruit Cakes recipe in the Ultimate Cake Book, which is worth doing with this cake too so the brandy reaches all the way through.
