This month, the Silver Travel Cook Club is giving you the chance to win a copy of Mary Berry’s Christmas Collection: Over 100 fabulous recipes and tips for a hassle-free festive season.
Get ready for the festive season with a classic Christmas cake recipe, inspired by Mary Berry’s Christmas Collection. This delicious cake can be made well in advance, allowing the rich flavours to develop perfectly before the celebrations begin.
With the festive season on the horizon, the Silver Travel Cook Club is thrilled to explore Mary Berry’s Christmas Collection, an essential resource for all your entertaining requirements. This charming compilation offers straightforward yet dependable recipes, paired with Mary’s expert tips to help alleviate the stress of hosting—be it for grand Christmas feasts, lively Boxing Day get-togethers, or cozy New Year’s gatherings. Complete with a helpful countdown to Christmas Day, sample menus, shopping lists, and guidance on preparing in advance and freezing, this cookbook is the perfect companion for a smooth festive experience.
Celebrate the joy of hosting and create unforgettable moments with Mary’s reliable recipes and sage advice.
Recipe: Mary Berry’s classic Christmas cake
Ingredients:
For the cake:
- 175g/6oz raisins
- 350g/12oz natural glacé cherries, halved, rinsed, and thoroughly dried
- 500g/1lb 2oz currants
- 350g/12oz sultanas
- 150ml/¼pt brandy or sherry, plus extra for feeding
- 2 oranges, zest only
- 250g/9oz butter, softened
- 250g/9oz light or dark muscovado sugar
- 4 large free-range eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tbsp black treacle
- 75g/3oz blanched almonds, chopped
- 275g/10oz plain flour
- 1½ tsp mixed spice
For the covering:
- about 3 tbsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved
- icing sugar
- 675g/1lb 8oz marzipan
For the royal icing:
- 3 free-range eggs, whites only
- 675g/1½lb icing sugar, sifted
- 3 tsp lemon juice
- 1½ tsp glycerine
Method:
- For the cake, place all the dried fruit, including the cherries, into a large mixing bowl, pour over the brandy and stir in the orange zest. Cover with clingfilm and leave to soak for three days, stirring daily.
- Grease and line a 23cm/9in deep, round tin with a double layer of greased greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 140C/120C Fan/Gas 1.
- Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and almonds into a very large bowl and beat well (preferably with an electric free-standing mixer). Add the flour and ground spice and mix thoroughly until blended. Stir in the soaked fruit. Spoon into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.
- Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for about 4-4½ hours, or until the cake feels firm to the touch and is a rich golden brown. Check after two hours, and if the cake is a perfect colour, cover with foil. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the tin.
- When cool, pierce the cake at intervals with a fine skewer and feed with a little extra brandy. Wrap the completely cold cake in a double layer of greaseproof paper and again in foil and store in a cool place for up to three months, feeding at intervals with more brandy. (Don’t remove the lining paper when storing as this helps to keep the cake moist.)
- The week before you want to serve, begin covering the cake.
- For the covering, stand the cake upside down, flat side uppermost, on a cake board which is 5cm/2in larger than the size of the cake.
- Brush the sides and the top of the cake with the warm apricot jam.
- Liberally dust a work surface with icing sugar and then roll out the marzipan to about 5cm/2in larger than the surface of the cake. Keep moving the marzipan as you roll, checking that it is not sticking to the work surface. Dust the work surface with more icing sugar as necessary.
- Carefully lift the marzipan over the cake using a rolling pin. Gently level and smooth the top of the paste with the rolling pin, then ease the marzipan down the sides of the cake, smoothing it at the same time. If you are careful, you should be able to cover the cake with no excess marzipan to trim but, if necessary, neatly trim excess marzipan from the base of the cake with a small sharp knife. Cover the cake loosely with baking parchment and leave for a few days to dry out before adding the royal icing.
- For the royal icing, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until they become frothy. Mix in the sifted icing sugar a tablespoonful at a time. You can do this with a hand-held electric whisk but keep the speed low.
- Stir in the lemon juice and glycerine and beat the icing until it is very stiff and white and stands up in peaks.
- Cover the surface of the icing tightly with clingfilm and keep in a cool place until needed.
- To ice the cake, place all the icing onto the top of the cake. Spread evenly over the top and sides of the cake with a palette knife. For a snow-peak effect, use a smaller palette knife to rough up the icing.
- Leave the cake loosely covered overnight for the icing to harden a little, then wrap or store in an airtight container in a cool place until needed.
How to win a copy of book Mary Berry’s Christmas Collection
Comment below and tell us which traditional dish you look forward to preparing each Christmas and why?
A winner will be chosen at random in early December 2024.
The competition closes on 30 November 2024.
75 Responses
Homemade bread sauce seems to be very traditional in our family
Chocolate Yule Log – family favourite
Christmas cake
Roast Goose, a tasty alternative on the big day. Love it!
I love baking mince pies, they are a family favourite and really make us feel Christmassy!
I love baking the mince pies, butter shortbread and gingerbread, not that it lasts to long in our house.
Mince pies we have a family competition who makes the best. Does get even more competitive each year. Great fun
Making Christmas Puddings. A tried & true recipe used for many years, a wonderful rich, once a year treat.
Traditional bread sauce. Only myself and one son love it. But enhances the Turkey dinner no end.
It’s definitely got to be a delicious Christmas trifle! My late 90yr old nana’s recipe with plenty of sherry in it!! Xx
Treacle toffee because it reminds me of my grandmother
Christmas begins with my first batch of mince pies – lovely served warm.
Mince tarts, my mum showed me how to make them 60 years ago and I think of her when I make them
Definitely my goose fat roast potatoes they are the Christmas favourites in our family
Definitely enjoy making a Christmas cake. Do it early and then feed it with whisky during the weeks leading to Christmas – one tot for the cake and one for me!!! Makes me feel very Christmassy!
I make Christmas flavoured fudge for all my friends so choosing the flavours each year and then giving them out is a tradition that I really look forward to.
Christmas Cake and I actually use Mary Berry’s recipe! It’s a favourite in our house and I look forward to decorating it each year. I like to go choose a new topper decoration.
I love making our traditional savoury sausage meat stuffing. We don’t use it for stuffing but a great addition to the dinner plate. It is also great cold so enjoyed on Boxing Day
you cannot go wrong with a good quality cottage pie with all of the trimmings
Mince pies, its a family tradition that started before I was born love sharing the tradition with my children.
My famous sausage meat, apple and sage stuffing. Just love the smell of it when it come out of the oven. Reminds me of Christmas.
I look forward to making my homemade gluten free, vegetarian, nut roast. It has become a tradition for me to make this with my young Nieces. We play Christmas tunes and it is magical family time
I can’t wait to make a boozy Christmas Pudding and get the flame to it ready to consume! It’s not Christmas until I’ve eaten one.
Gingerbread reindeer, thr kids love them!
Making the gingerbread house and gingerbread decorations for the tree with my children on Christmas Eve gets us all in the Christmas Spirit!
My go to piece at Christmas time has always been the homemade trifle – My tradition has changed throughout the years when my nieces have grown up with families of their own & now include making their trifles too
I love baking mince pies because it is fun and relaxing and helps get me in a Christmassy mood!
I love to make a traditional gingerbread house. Every year I made one with my nan and now I enjoy making one with my two beautiful granddaughters Georgia and Honey. We set a date and go and buy all the ingredients and it’s one of the highlights of the build up to Christmas.
I love making my Mary Berry Christmas cake, which I bake in August & usually on a very hot day !
The cranberry sauce. It always reminds me of my nan 💕
Stuffing, love the different varieties.
Roast potatoes, par boiled a few minutes, fluffed and soaked in goose fat and cornflour. Crispy and rustic! Wonderful!
Cauliflower cheese. We love it with Christmas dinner but don’t have it the rest of the year due to the calories but Christmas is a real treat time!
I always look forward to the Christmas cake with Wensleydale cheese. Its a tradition in our family and we look forward to it at Christmas time only.
I buy all the ingredients to make fruity plum Christmas cake.
I look forward to making my Christmas puddings at this time of year, I use my grandma’s recipe.
The turkey roast dinner
Mince Pies. Home made for family for about 40 years but has grown to the extent of making 10/12 dozen per year for all those who request. Plain, Viennese, crumble, frangipane, start in late November and freeze.
Got be Cauliflower Cheese
Every year, just before Christmas, I make and construct three Gingerbread Houses. The three youngest members of the family come to my house to decorate them with icing and lots of sweets, then take them home on a complete sugar high. This gives their parents more time to prepare the home for Christmas, and has given the children a new family tradition as they love ‘Gingerbread House Day’!
I will be making Mince Pies for the first time, and I look forward. I am originally from Norway, but my British boyfriend has introduced me to all the British classics, and I would love to perfect mince pies, especially since they are his favourites.
A traditional Christmas lunch with all the trimmings sitting down with my wonderful family
When I make the homemade mincemeat, so nice compared to the slime you can buy.The smells of the fruit and the spices just feels like Christmas. Trouble is I’m a mince pie piggy .
Chestnut stuffing – i make far too much and have some with every meal
Christmas pudding. I get to chop up all the bits to go in it and then have a jolly good stir. Best recipe ever and something to look forward to on Christmas Day.
a yule log reminds me of my childhood
Mince pies – the first of the season always tastes the best!
My favourite traditional food item at Christmas is Christmas Pudding. I make them for friends and family as well and for us I make the biggest one so that I can eat it cold with cream afterwards. Naughty but nice 🙃
Brussels sprouts with chestnuts
Traditional Christmas lunch – with turkey, stuffing and sprouts – I can’t understand why people don’t like them – mind you, all the more for us!
Brussel sprouts. I love them, get to have lots of them as most people hate them.
Traditional roast lunch, just like my Mum used to cook.
To making homemade mince pies for all my family and friends from a family recipe
Homemade Christmas pudding is nicer than shop bought so I will make one again
I will make a Christmas cake as I feel that they are nicer than shop bought which usually are too rich .
Christmas pudding, always fun trying to find the pound coin inside
turkey dinner, yummy, thank you
It has to be the Brussels Sprouts! No one used to like them, and then I found an obscure, handwritten recipe in one of my maternal grandmother’s recipe books…just jottings dotted on the corner of one page…but that’s what I’ve been doing the past few years and now everyone, even the grandchildren, eat Brussels sprouts!
Sausage rolls with homemade shortcrust pastry and a little onion added to the organic sausagemeat. Delicious!
Christmas Pudding on Stir Up Sunday
Over the past 20 odd years, husband and I have only spent one Christmas Day in th UK, we’ve always been in the Canary Islands, Christmas dinner is always a leg of lamb, I don’t like turkey and chicken is an every day type of dish anyway. Husband does all the cooking and I can relax in the sun!
Christmas pudding
Family recipe passed down the family
Make a few so we can enjoy some once Christmas has passed too.
Home Made Mince Pies With Shortbread And Puff Pastry
Christmas cake because it’s fun to make and is all the ‘merrier’ once the whisky, rum and brandy are added!
I love our family tradition of making the Christmas cake together at the end of Half Term, so that it is all set for Christmas and will have infused with all the delicious flavours that go into it. I now have a grandson who can help with the mixing – priceless memories.
Christmas cake …… a 60 year recipe from schooldays! This will be the first year I haven’t made even one for the many members of my family over the years, including ourselves. Caring for and the lack of energy looking after husband in palliative care at home. This would make a wonderful gift for my soon to be married grandaughter.
Gingerbread. We make decorations for the tree with gingerbread, always have lots of fun decorating the different shapes as well as the little gingerbread men and ladies.
I love making my Christmas Cake, even although I eat almost half of it ha ha ! It takes a lot of time to get all the ingredients ready and getting it all mixed. I love injecting it with brandy every week, and smelling the cake after ! But when it’s ready to eat, oh my goodness it’s delicious and you can tell it’s home made !
Guinness Christmas pudding, our mum bought us all a copy of a little book with the recipe in, so my 2 brothers (one in Denmark, the other in Yorkshire) make it.
I even used to make it with patients in the Day Hospice where I worked. Absolutely brilliant and a long standing part of Christmas. For some patients, it was the first Christmas pudding they had made.
Has to be my late mother in laws Christmas pudding recipe. Shame I have to make my own now but they always remind me of her. x
My family starts asking for my homemade mince pies as soon as its December. I love making them and the smell as they are cooking is so scrummy. I think I must make at least 70, some I gift to friends.
Traditional sherry trifle, I always make it to my mother in laws receipe especially for her, it’s something that is Traditional for our family every Christmas.
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without cranberry sauce to go with the turkey at Christmas lunch (and also the turkey sandwiches on Boxing Day). BUT it does need to be made from ‘proper’ cranberries rather than the bought jars which are always too sweet.
My mother was Canadian and long, long before Delia Smith discovered the joys of cranberries, Mum was always sent a packet of cranberries from Canada every Christmas.
Ever since I saw the recipe in the Daily Mail in 2016, I have been making ‘mince pie squares’ which is really simple and easy with delicious results – try it yourself – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-3950538/Stir-perfect-Christmas-alternative-mince-pie-squares.html
I love and look forward to making homemade mince pies using my mum’s traditional recipe which has been passed down from my grandmother.