Christmas cake with dried fruits from Vysotskaya. Traditional English Christmas cake

The New Year holidays are getting closer and closer, so today we will create a festive New Year mood. In advance, you need to take care of the treat. What is a Christmas or New Year's table without dessert? There are many traditional desserts for this occasion. In England they make pudding, in Italy they bake panforte nut pie, in Germany they cook the traditional Stollen, and in Austria they make Christmas cookies. Today I will bake a Christmas cake with dried fruits and nuts. It is simply fabulously tasty and fragrant, and also has a lot of benefits. It can be baked in advance and the longer it is stored and aged, the more fragrant and tasty it becomes.

Ingredients:

• Dried fruits and nuts - 500 - 700 g
• Cognac
• Sugar - 180 g
• Butter - 225 g
• Chicken egg - 4 pcs.
• Wheat flour - 300 g
• Baking powder - 10 g
• Vanillin - to taste

Recipe for Christmas cake with dried fruits and nuts

From dried fruits, I take dates, raisins, figs, prunes, dried cherries and dried cranberries in an arbitrary amount. From nuts, a handful of almonds and hazelnuts. I make a Christmas cake with dried fruits soaked in cognac, so before preparing the dough, I prepare dried fruits and nuts. I fill them with cognac and leave for a few days. They will absorb cognac, and pastries will have a dizzying aroma. Before pouring, it is necessary to rinse them under running water, free from stones if any, dates for example. Raisins sometimes come across small tails, it is also desirable to get rid of them. Then put them on a sieve and let the water drain. Then put in a container and pour cognac. They insisted on me for 5 days, but a couple of days is enough.

Next, beat the softened butter with sugar, then continuing to beat, add the eggs one at a time. Add each subsequent egg after the previous one is completely beaten.

From the total amount of flour I take 2 tbsp. for rolling dried fruits. Sift the rest of the flour along with the baking powder and vanilla.

Add the sifted flour to the egg-butter mixture and mix the dough gently from bottom to top. I combine dried fruits with deferred 2 tbsp. flour and mix. Then I mix them into the dough.

I decided to bake a Christmas cupcake aged in a round shape, so I used a regular ladle. You can take a foil cake pan, it is also very convenient. I grease the baking dish with butter. If you're unsure about the non-stick properties of a baking dish, line it with parchment paper.

I spread the dough into a mold. I heat the oven to 180 degrees, then lower the temperature to 160 degrees. I set the cake to bake for 1.5 hours. I check its readiness with a splinter.

Now I need it to cool down, then I wrap it with parchment and more foil. After that, I put it in a cold place for storage. Cake with dried fruits and nuts, the longer it sits, the tastier it will be.

When it's time to serve our dessert to the table, it remains to decorate it with icing and decorate. For the glaze, I mix 100 grams of powdered sugar with the juice of half a lemon. If it seems to be runny, I add a little more powder. You can also buy it ready-made, now there is a glaze of different colors on sale. Before applying to the cake, it is recommended to warm it up in the microwave for a few seconds.

I put sugar icing on the cupcake and decorate it to my taste. Christmas tree branches can be imitated with rosemary leaves. I add mandarin slices, cranberries and a little decorative confectionery topping. Christmas cupcake with dried fruits and nuts and I hope you liked this recipe and want to repeat it. Bon appetit!

Natasha Bezdolnaya

Creator of the Natasha Pekla project

The ratio of ingredients

The perfect cupcake has a silky, slightly crumbly texture. It should be moist and sufficiently dense, with a uniform crumb. In order to prepare a good classic cupcake, you need only four ingredients: flour, sugar, butter and eggs. Our recipes are based on the basic pound cake: all ingredients are taken in equal amounts - one pound (approximately 450 grams). This amount is enough for two forms. You can experiment endlessly with the recipe for a pound cake: add toppings, replace part of the wheat flour with another, and so on. All this, of course, at your own peril and risk, because each ingredient plays a role not only in creating taste, but also texture. You can’t, for example, greatly reduce the amount of sugar or replace it with honey and wait for a light crumb - most likely, it will be much denser than usual. A cake will turn out completely different if you replace butter with vegetable oil - but in this case there is already a question of taste. The perfect recipe can only be found through trial and error.

New Year's cake differs from the traditional ratio of ingredients. We deliberately reduced the amount of sugar, because the main thing in it is dried fruits. Firstly, they are very sweet in themselves, and secondly, a New Year's cupcake should not be airy - it is more correct to describe its texture with the English word chewy. We also replaced part of the wheat flour with chopped almonds - this makes the cake more tender, and a marzipan note is added to the flavor.

Dough kneading technique

Traditionally, the dough is prepared as follows: first of all, butter and sugar are whipped, then eggs and flour are introduced. Whipping the butter and sugar creates air bubbles that make the cake airy. For this method, the temperature of the oil is very important: if the oil is too cold, then it can be under-whipped, if it is too warm, it will begin to melt and will not be able to hold air bubbles.

There is an alternative technique - reverse creaming, when the flour is mixed with room temperature butter, and the eggs are beaten with sugar. This technique produces more small bubbles, which make the texture soft and silky, making the cake softer, but not as airy as the traditional method. Reverse creaming is easier and more reliable, so I would recommend it to beginners. I love the texture of these cupcakes.

Preparation of dried fruits

Use those dried fruits that you like: prunes, dried apricots, pears, figs, dates, plums, cranberries. If you don't like raisins, just don't add them - it won't make the cake any worse, but you will definitely enjoy it.

You need to think about dried fruits in advance: it is advisable to pour fruit with orange juice and alcohol (medium-sized rum or cognac is suitable here about a week before baking), mix everything and close tightly. The soaked fruit will give the cake moisture and a characteristic, slightly intoxicating aroma. We use 100 grams of juice and rum for 1 kilogram of dried fruits. If you have not prepared in advance, you can cheat - warm dried fruits with juice, add rum or other alcohol, mix, close tightly and leave overnight.

We also add candied orange peels to the filling. They are easy to prepare at home - you can find a huge number of recipes on the Internet.

Excerpt

It is important to understand that the New Year's cake is stored much longer than usual: dried fruits will not let it dry out, and sugar, which acts as a preservative, will not let it go bad. After the finished cake has cooled, it must be wrapped in paper, foil or film and left for at least a day, and preferably for several weeks or a month. The longer, the tastier. But remember that everything is good in moderation and storing a cupcake for six months is a bad idea.

Ingredients

Butter - 130 grams
- Sugar - 100 grams
- Eggs - 3 pieces
- Flour - 100 grams
- Chopped almonds - 50 grams
- Salt - ½ teaspoon
- Spices (any you like) - 1 teaspoon
- Dried fruits (already soaked in juice and alcohol) - 500 grams
- Candied fruits - 50 grams

All ingredients must be at room temperature.

Line a cake pan with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to a temperature of 150 degrees.

Beat eggs with sugar with a mixer at high speed until stiff foam. You can try to beat by hand, but this will take a lot of time and effort.

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A week before baking, soak nuts, dried fruits, candied fruits in cognac or brandy. The recipe indicates 3 types of raisins: light, dark and red, and cherries are candied fruits. Here it is important to follow some rules: - the total amount of fruit filling should be 1 kg 400 g -1 kg 500 g (or reduce in proportion to the flour mixture, it should be approximately 1: 1); - do not use fresh or frozen fruits, they will give juice and this will significantly affect the moisture content of the dough; - it is desirable not to change the composition of spices. If the taste of any spice does not suit you or not everything was found, then you can simply do without it (without replacing it with another one). It is necessary to grind all the fruit and nut components if they are larger than 1.5 cm and bring everything to the same size. Butter and eggs should be at room temperature.

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Place fruit, zest and spices in a large bowl. Mix orange juice (or ginger wine) with cognac (or brandy) and pour over fruit. Mix thoroughly - everything should be covered with liquid. Close tightly and leave for a week. Periodically shake the container so that the liquid soaks the filling evenly. The fruit will become soft in texture and there will be no problem cutting the cake. Prepare for the next stage - baking: soak the almonds for the dough in water, peel, dry in the oven or in a pan and chop in a blender.

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A week later, when the fruits and nuts are infused, you can start baking a cupcake. We prepare forms - any, to your taste, and coat with butter, then put baking paper and coat again with butter. Let the edges of the paper protrude 5-7 cm from the top of the mold so that the cupcake does not burn when baking. 1. We measure and weigh all the ingredients according to the recipe and separate the yolks from the proteins. 2. Mix ground almonds, flour, baking powder and spices (optional). 3. Beat the butter, 5-7 minutes, until it becomes a light color. 4. Add sugar, continuing to beat for 7-10 minutes. 5. Add molasses (you can honey) at medium speed. 6. Now we introduce the eggs, whisking. 7. Add the flour mixture all at once, mix for 2 minutes at low speed. 8. We set aside part of the finished dough in a separate container, about 7 tbsp.

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9. Add all the fruit ingredients according to the recipe, mix with a spatula. 10. We put the dough in the mold at 2/3, maximum 3/4 of the height. On top we put a few tablespoons of the reserved dough without filling - this is done to prevent the fruit from burning, and level with a spatula. 11. We put the forms with the dough on a baking sheet covered with a silicone mat, and preferably with a thick layer of newspapers, after wrapping it with a layer of newspapers, in an oven preheated to 135-140 ° C and bake for 3-3.5 hours. The finished cupcake is very beautiful in color . 12. Immediately, while still hot, grease its surface with cognac, without removing it from the mold, wrap it in foil and leave it for 12 hours or overnight. 13. The next day, we take the cake out of the mold and pack it again: in baking paper, in foil, then in a bag and send it for storage. The cupcake should be stored at room temperature (20-25°C) for at least 2 weeks, and preferably 4. Every week we take out the cupcake, grease it with cognac, pack it again, and so every week until Christmas. Decorate to your liking: marzipan, icing or leave as is. Very tasty and fragrant, and most importantly - this is the process of waiting for the holiday and Christmas baking!

Christmas and New Year are the holidays that are celebrated in every family. Often it is during this period that the whole family gathers in one house to spend the old year and make a wish so that the next one will bring only joy.

Traditional English cupcake

On New Year's holidays, housewives prepare a wide variety of dishes, wanting to please the household only with delicious food. A traditional English Christmas cake will decorate any table.

It takes a little time to bake dessert. But the main plus of the English Christmas cake is the ability to cook it long before the holidays. Such pastries belong to the type of desserts that need to be closed after heat treatment in a dark place where they will “fit”. The whole range of flavors of the English Christmas cake is revealed just in time for the New Year holidays. To prepare delicacies, you can use both a traditional recipe from British chefs and a modern one.

Jamie Oliver's Christmas Cupcake

The process of baking an English Christmas cake is a rather long step-by-step action that accompanies the festive, joyful atmosphere of the approaching Christmas. First, long before the cake is prepared, dried fruits and candied fruits are prepared. Then - the baking itself, which takes several hours. But even after cooking, a Christmas English cake cannot be served immediately. For about four more weeks, it will be wetted and saturated with alcohol. But by Christmas there will be real sweet and spicy pastries on the table.

There are dozens of different recipes for making an English Christmas cake. Someone adds nuts, rum, cognac, cranberries and so on to baking. But the classic taste of dessert can only be achieved using a recipe from an English chef and confectioner.

To make Jamie Oliver's English Christmas Cake, you will need the following ingredients:

• Flour - 240 g.
• Eggs - 4 pieces.
• Ground mixture of nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, cloves - 2 tsp.
• Butter - 240 g.
• Cognac - 150 ml.
• Dark raisins - 140 g.
• A mixture of dried fruits - dried apricots, candied oranges, prunes, dates - 200 g.
• Brown sugar - 240 g.
• Cream twenty percent - 140 ml.
• Baking powder - 3 tsp
• Almonds - 60 g.
• Zest of one lemon and one orange.
• Light raisins - 140 g.

We prepare dried fruits

Before preparing an English Christmas cake with dried fruits and nuts, you need to prepare the filling. Its components must be washed well. Remove pits from prunes and dates. Then cut all the dried fruits that are part of the cake into small pieces. Take a small saucepan and put the chopped ingredients into it, pour over the cognac, mix and place in the refrigerator for at least a week. It is necessary to stir periodically so that the cognac evenly soaks the dried fruits.

Nuts need to be dried. To do this, preheat the oven to 190 degrees and place a baking sheet with the components in it for 6-7 minutes, not forgetting to mix them. Let the nuts cool and chop with a knife into small pieces. About a week later, after the dried fruits are well infused, you can start baking the cake. All ingredients must be placed in the kitchen in advance, as they must be at room temperature.

Let's start baking

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat brown sugar with softened butter until fluffy and fluffy until the sugar is completely dissolved. In this whitened mass, gradually, one at a time, introduce eggs. Whisk well after each one. Pour ground spices and grated lemon and orange zest.

Then gradually add flour mixed with baking powder in small parts and beat well. Pour in the cream and stir. The last to add dried fruits infused with cognac and chopped almonds to the dough and mix thoroughly again.

Now you need to prepare a baking dish in which the English Christmas cake will be prepared. It must be greased with oil and covered with baking paper so that it covers the sides of the container by 5-7 centimeters. This is done so that the cake does not burn from the sides.

Put the prepared dough into a mold and place in the oven, preheated to 140 degrees. Bake for at least three hours. The finished cake will turn out to be a beautiful brownish color due to the use of brown sugar and dried fruit in the preparation. Without removing from the mold, while hot, you need to grease the surface of the dessert with cognac, immediately wrap it in foil and leave for at least 12 hours.

After that, take the dessert out of the mold, pack it tightly in baking paper, wrap it in the next layer in baking foil, and then in cling film. Pastries must be stored in a warm room with an air temperature of about 20 degrees for about a month, remembering to unwrap and grease the English Christmas cake every week with cognac, and carefully pack again. During storage, the alcohol evaporates, but the aroma remains. Immediately before serving, the cake must be decorated.

English Christmas Cupcake: Recipe with Photo

A traditional English dessert can be prepared not only in the oven, but also in a slow cooker.

To make a cake you will need:

• Flour - 500 g.
• Butter - 400 g.
• A set of dried fruits - 1200 g.
• Baking powder - 4 tsp
• Brown sugar - 200 g.
• Dry sherry - 1 cup.
• Ground cinnamon - 2 tsp
• Ground cloves - 0.5 tsp
• Ground cardamom - 1 tsp
• Almonds - 100 g.
• Eggs - 8 pieces.
• Orange peel - 4 tsp
• Ground nutmeg - 0.5 tsp.

We prepare the filling

Let's use the proven recipe for an English Christmas cake with dried fruits to prepare. But first you need to prepare some of the ingredients that make up the filling. You need to take 200 grams of dried fruits. Rinse figs, raisins, cherries, dates, prunes and dried apricots thoroughly under running water to remove dirt, remove stones and cut into small pieces.

Place chopped dried fruits in a bowl of suitable size, pour a glass of sherry into them, stir, cover and place in the refrigerator for 5-6 days. Take them out of the refrigerator only a day before baking the dessert. You will need a tray that needs to be covered with baking paper. On top of it you need to lay out chopped dried fruits and leave them to dry.

Cooking the dough

All the ingredients that make up the recipe for an English Christmas cupcake must be warmed up to room temperature. Grind 10 teaspoons of brown sugar in a coffee grinder with almonds. Combine the cinnamon, flour, cloves, cardamom, baking powder, nutmeg in a small bowl and sift the dry ingredients mixture into a large bowl.

Measure out 8 tablespoons of the resulting mixture and sprinkle it on dried fruits on a tray. Mix everything. This must be done so that during baking, the chopped dried fruits are evenly distributed and do not sink to the bottom of the cake. Beat with a mixer 400 grams of softened butter and the remaining brown sugar. Without stopping the mixer, add all the eggs in turn.

Introduce orange zest, almond and flour mixtures into this mass, stir, and then add dried fruits. Knead the dough well. Lubricate the multicooker bowl with butter. Line the bottom with baking paper. Place the resulting English Christmas cake batter into the multicooker bowl. Set the "Baking" mode and set the timer for 2 hours. Then turn the cake over and continue baking for another 30 minutes.

After cooking, leave the cake in the slow cooker for another 15 minutes and place it on the wire rack. Mix in a Turk a tablespoon of dry sherry with a tablespoon of sugar. The container should be placed on fire. Heat until sugar is completely dissolved. Make a lot of holes in the cake. Be sure to soak it with sugar and sherry syrup. Leave on a wire rack to cool completely.

Carefully wrap the cooled English Christmas cake in cling film and place in the refrigerator. Keep it in a cold place until Christmas. Just before serving, decorate to your liking.

simple christmas cupcake

This recipe is useful for those housewives who, due to their workload, do not have time to use the classic English Christmas cake recipe for cooking. But to please loved ones, you can prepare a dessert in a simple way.

Ingredients:

• Raisins - 400 g.
• Brandy - 8 tbsp. l.
• Roasted peanuts - 200 g.
• Candied fruits - 500 g.
• Lemon juice - 60 ml.
• Butter - 400 g.
• Brown sugar - 400 g.
• Eggs - 8 pieces.
• Zest of one lemon.
• Wheat flour - 400 g.
• Ginger - 2 tbsp. l.

Let's start cooking

First you need to pour brandy raisins for half an hour. Mix peanuts, candied fruits and lemon juice. Knead the dough from flour, sugar, eggs and butter. Stir until it turns into a homogeneous mass. Add lemon zest to dough. Add nuts, dried fruits, ginger and candied fruits to the dough and mix everything thoroughly.

Grease a baking dish with oil and cover with foil. Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Place the dough in the mold and bake for about 80 minutes. The finished cake can be covered with powdered sugar. Dessert can be served at the table.

Stollen (German: Stollen, Christstollen) is a traditional German Christmas cake made from heavy yeast dough with candied fruits and dried fruits in the filling. To prepare a real stollen, it is extremely important to observe the correct proportions: ten parts by weight of flour require at least three parts of butter and six parts of candied fruits. Candied fruits and dried fruits are pre-soaked in alcohol, and the finished cake is packed in paper and kept in a cool place for about a month. From the point of view of the confectionery process, this makes sense - alcohol maximizes aromas and serves as a kind of preservative, and buttery dough has the ability to absorb and retain odors. And given the fact that there is a huge amount of all kinds of spices in the yeast dough for stollen, you can fully imagine how wonderfully the infused and ripened cake will smell fragrant when it is taken out and unwrapped in due time!
Cooking stollen is a special pleasure. Sort dried fruits, cut candied fruit, flavor the filling, grind spices in a mortar, monitor the growing yeast dough, knead pliable dough, form rounded appetizing loaves, inhale enchanting Christmas smells coming from a hot oven, wrap ready-made stollens in parchment, tie with a rope and hide on storage - all this inspires, pleases and gives anticipation of the holiday! And then for a whole month you can mentally return to the cherished delicacy, which is waiting in the wings in a secluded place, getting better every day ... Be sure to pamper your loved ones, give them sweet winter magic!

To prepare Christmas stollen, you will need the following ingredients:

Filling:
200 g raisins,
100 g dried cranberries,
150 g candied fruits,
1 orange
100 ml brandy.

Dough:
200 g butter,
170 g milk
100 g sugar
450 g flour
1 st. l. dry yeast,
a pinch of salt,
spices (cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cardamom, star anise, nutmeg, etc.).

Sugar crust:
50 g butter,
70 g of powdered sugar.

How to make Christmas stollen:

So, let's move on to the process of preparing the Christmas stollen.

The day before the preparation of the stollen, you need to prepare the filling. To do this, wash and dry the raisins and cranberries, cut the candied fruit (I have melon and ginger) into pieces and put everything together in a jar.

Wash the orange, dry thoroughly, remove the zest and squeeze out the juice.

Mix cognac with orange juice and zest.

And fill this mixture with candied fruits and dried fruits.

Close the jar tightly with a lid and leave for a day so that the berries and fruits are saturated with aromatic liquid. Shake the jar from time to time. This is what its contents look like the next day - juicy shiny pieces that look like gems. The smell is just intoxicating!

Now you can prepare the dough for the stollen. First, we put the dough - add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of flour and dry yeast to warm milk.

Mix everything and cover with cling film. We make a hole in the film for air circulation. Leave in a warm place for 15-20 minutes.

In this we select and prepare spices. I took a few cardamom seeds, three cloves, a couple of star anise petals and a pinch of coriander seeds, added a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of sugar, and ground it in a mortar and mortar. Then I added some ground cinnamon and nutmeg. You can also add vanilla.

Sift the spice mixture into the oil.

By this time, the dough is already ready, the yeast has come to life and formed a lush foam.

Add the remaining sugar and butter with spices to the yeast dough.

In several steps, mix in the flour.

We knead soft dough - due to the large amount of oil in the composition, it will not stick to your hands, it will be convenient to knead it. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes.

We cover the container with the dough with cling film, do not forget about the hole.

Let the dough rest in a warm place for 40 minutes to rise. It is convenient to proof the dough in an open oven at a minimum temperature. The dough will double in volume.

We add the filling to the dough - candied fruits and dried fruits, along with the liquid remaining in the jar.

Mix (if necessary, add a little flour) and divide the dough into two equal parts.