Beechworth Bakery Christmas Cake

The Beechworth Bakery is famed for its delicious baked goods.  We visited the Echuca branch in 2013.

Somewhere online, I found the Beechworth Bakery Christmas Cake recipe and printed it off.  For the life of me, I cannot find it again.  It could have been taken down, as it appeared to be part of a brochure promoting the bakery.

Luckily for me, I had a copy of the recipe, and decided to make it for my Christmas cake this year.  What I love about this recipe is the gorgeous jewelled fruity top.

Here is my cake before going into the oven: 

 
and after coming out:

Beautiful!

If you want to eat one of these beauties, you can order them from the Beechworth Bakery website.  However, if you want to make one, you will need:

Cake

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
5 x 60g eggs
1 tablespoon cornflour
2 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon mixed spice
2 cups sultanas
1 2/3 cups raisins
1 cup currants
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup mixed peel (optional - I skipped it)
1/3 cup red glace cherries
1/3 cup green glace cherries
1/4 cup rum
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

(The original recipe also had 3 teaspoons Parisian essence and 1 tablespoon glycerine - I skipped them both.)

Topping

1/3 cup flaked almonds (I used slivered almonds)\
1/4 cup mixed peel (again, I skipped it)
1/4 cup glazed pineapple
1/3 cup red glace cherries
1/3 cup green glace cherries

Halve cherries and put into a large bowl with the sultanas, raisins, currants, peel (if using), pecans and rum (and glycerine, if using).  Cover and stand for 2 days, stirring each day.

Grease a 20cm square cake tin and line with 2 layers of baking paper, and line the outside of the tin with thick cardboard (I got an old cardboard box and folded it around the outside of the tin, and tied it in place with string).

Put the plain flour, cornflour, nutmeg,   mixed spice and baking powder in a bowl.  The recipe says sift all of this twice - I didn't bother.

For the topping, chop the cherries in half and chop the pineapple to a similar size.  Mix all of the topping ingredients together.

Preheat your oven to 140 degrees Celsius.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, together with one tablespoon of dry ingredients per egg.  (Then beat in the Parisian essence if using.)

Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until all of the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the batter.

Fold the dried fruit in by hand.

Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin, and with a damp hand, press the mixture down until evenly distributed and the cake is flat on top.

Place the topping on top of the cake and press in slightly to secure it.

Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 4 hours and 15 minutes, turning once every hour.  To stop the top of the cake getting too dark, cover with alfoil if necessary.

Once the cake is cooked through, remove it from the oven, then melt a couple of tablespoons of apricot jam in the microwave and brush it over the top of the warm cake to make it shiny.

Wrap in baking powder and alfoil and put in a cool dark place to mature until Christmas!