Recipes

A recipe for Certosino or Italian Christmas Cake from Henrietta. She says ‘The taste of this cake is far more aromatic than the traditional British Christmas cake. Instead of apples, I have also made it with pureed quinces, pureed pears or a mixture of the two and each time the spiced moist fruit flavour was superb. The cake matures and mellows with keeping so do make it at least a week before you want to eat it.’

Makes a 24cm cake

    55g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
    75g white seedless raisins
    1½ tbsp rum
    255-285g cooking apples, peeled and cored
    Juice of ¼ lemon
    15g caster sugar
    350g runny honey
    1 tsp ground cinnamon
    1 tbsp aniseed
    375g plain flour
    170g blanched almonds, coarsely chopped
    75g bitter chocolate, coarsely chopped
    170g candied mixed orange and lemon peel
    45g pine nuts
    1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
    3 tbsp apricot jam
    Candied fruit and walnut or pecan halves, to decorate

Method

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F and generously grease a large loose-bottomed 24cm cake tin or savarin mould with butter.

To prepare the fruit, put the raisins in a small bowl with the rum and leave to soak for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, put the apples in a saucepan with the lemon juice, sugar, 15g of the butter and 2 tbsp water. Simmer gently for about 10-15 minutes until reduced to a soft puree. Pass the puree through a sieve, weigh out 170g and leave to cool.

Put the honey in the top part of a double boiler or in a bowl set over a saucepan half-filled with warm water and warm over a medium heat. Add the remaining butter along with 3 tbsp of water and stir until the butter has all melted. Then stir in the cinnamon and aniseed and remove from the heat.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. The slowly pour in the honey mixture, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon until it is well blended. Stir in the apple puree, the almonds, chocolate, candied peel and the raisins with the rum. Carefully fold in the pine nuts so as not to crush them. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a couple of tsp of water and stir this into the mixture also.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 1¼ - 1½ hours. To test whether the cake is done, insert a metal skewer into the centre: if it comes out clean the cake is ready. Turn it out on a wire rack and leave to cool.

To decorate the cake, melt the apricot jam in a saucepan over a low heat along with 1 tbsp of water. Brush the top with the jam, then stud the walnut or pecan halves and candied fruit over the top and finally brush the cake all over with the jam to set the fruit in place.