Gloverly Cupcakes

I wanted to do something different for our Christmas cake this year, so decided on a big Father Christmas! I found a lovely design on Pinterest and thought I would give it a go, Emily is very excited about Father Christmas this year so I thought it was perfect. This year I am breaking from some of the traditional recipes I usually make, so the Christmas cake is a new one from October’s Sainsbury’s Magazine – clementine and chocolate, can’t wait to try it! Click

The recipe from Sainsbury’s Magazine can be found here and is also below:

For day 1
250g raisins
250g currants
100g dried cranberries
100g dried cherries
100g chopped mixed peel
100ml orange-flavoured liqueur, such as Cointreau, plus 3 tbsp for feeding
grated zest and juice of 4 clementines (about 8 tbsp)

For day 2
200g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), chopped
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp ground mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
200g soft salted butter
200g dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
3 large eggs
1 tbsp fine-cut marmalade
100g ground almonds
100g blanched hazelnuts, roasted and coarsely chopped
50g blanched almonds, roasted and coarsely chopped

The day before baking the cake, put the dried fruits, chopped mixed peel, orange liqueur and clementine zest and juice into a large saucepan. Bring up to the boil, turning the fruits over as you do so, then cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Tip into a mixing bowl, cover and leave to soak overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas 2. Move one of the shelves so that it is towards the bottom of the oven. Grease and line the base and sides of a deep 20cm round cake tin with baking paper. Tie a thick, wide strip of folded newspaper or brown paper around the outside of the tin and lay another folded newspaper on a baking sheet and put the cake tin on top (this stops the outside of the cake cooking too quickly).
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Leave to cool.

Sift the flour and spices together into a bowl. Whisk the butter in another large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer until it is creamy, then add the muscovado sugar and vanilla and beat well for 5 minutes until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoonful of the flour mixture with the second and third egg to help stop the mixture from curdling.

Fold in the remaining flour mixture followed by the melted chocolate, soaked fruits and any soaking liquid, the marmalade, ground almonds and chopped nuts. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level with a spoon. Push the handle of a wooden spoon halfway down into the mixture at intervals all over the cake – this helps keep the top flat.
Tear off a double thickness sheet of baking paper, large enough to cover the top of the tin generously, and cut a hole in the centre, about the size of a 10p coin. Lay on top of the cake tin, transfer to the oven, and bake for 23⁄4-3 hours or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes away clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

Remove the cake from the tin and discard the lining paper. Wrap in clean baking paper then foil, flat base-side up, and store in a cool, dark place. The next day, unwrap the cake and spike the base with a skewer. Drizzle over 1 tablespoon of the remaining orange liqueur and re-wrap. Repeat the feeding process twice more as the cake matures, leaving at least a week to dry out before decorating so that the icing won’t discolour.

The original design cake from McGreevy Cakes. I baked four 5″ cakes this year and stacked them all on top of each other – hopefully Father Christmas will still be standing by Christmas! They were covered in marzipan and then I began covering them with sugar paste. I’ve been using Massa Tropical paste and it’s amazing, it moulds really well and smooths out really nicely and stays pliable for quite a long time too, so it’s much easier to work with. I started by covering the body with red sugar paste and used the sleeve of my knitted jumper to create the pattern by pressing it into the sugarpaste.

Once all the red was done I moved onto the bottom of Father Christmas’s outfit and then onto his face and beard. I loved making the beard, using some modelling tools to create the swirls. The cake was really fun to make and great to try something new!