Twelfth Night cake
Mary's traditional Twelfth Night cake is the perfect way to celebrate the end of the festive season.
Ingredients
- 5 large free-range eggs
- 250g/9oz self-raising flour
- 250g/9oz caster sugar
- 250g/9oz butter, softened
- 75g/2½oz ground almonds
- 350g/12oz glacé cherries, washed, dried and quartered
- 200g tin pineapple pieces in natural juice, roughly chopped and dried well on kitchen paper
- 350g/12oz dried apricots, snipped into small pieces
- 350g/12oz sultanas
- 100g/3½oz chopped almonds
- 2 unwaxed lemons, finely grated zest only
To decorate
- 4 tbsp apricot jam, warmed
- 500g/1lb 2oz golden marzipan
- 1kg/2lb 4oz gold fondant icing
- metallic classic gold food colour dust
- 100g/3½oz white fondant icing
- edible silver balls
- 75g/2½oz icing sugar, sieved
- edible floral cake lace
Method
Preheat the oven to 160C/140C Fan/Gas 3. Grease and line a 23cm/9in deep, round cake tin with a single layer of baking paper.
Measure the eggs, butter, flour, sugar and ground almonds into a bowl and whisk together. Add the chopped almonds, lemon zest and dried fruit. Mix well, spoon into the tin and level off the top.
Bake for 2¼–2½ hours until golden-brown. You may need to cover with foil if it's getting too brown.
Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 30 minutes, before removing onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely .
To decorate, remove the baking paper and place the cake on a gold cake board. Brush with the apricot jam.
Lightly dust a work surface with a little icing sugar and roll out the marzipan to a cirlce slightly bigger than the cake. Cover and smooth over the surface and sides. Brush with a light sprinkling of water.
Lightly dust a work suface with a little icing sugar. Roll out the gold icing to a circle slightly bigger than the cake. Cover the marzipan and smooth the surface. Trim the excess icing, (reserve this for later) then tuck under the cake. Brush with the gold dust to create a metallic finish.
Wrap the lace around the bottom of the cake and smooth.
Sprinkle icing sugar over the worktop and roll out the white icing. Cut out a scalloped fringe, stars and crown shapes using small cutters. Stick the crowns and stars around the sides of the cake using a little water. Cut out stars from the reserved gold icing and stick on the crowns. Put a sliver ball on the tip of each crown. (See the image for design.)
