Christmas Cake!

350 grams raisins
300 grams sultanas
150 grams currants
150 grams roughly chopped walnuts
150 grams roughly chopped figs
Juice of 2 oranges
Zest of 1 orange
110g castor sugar
300ml whiskey
1 tsp vanilla extract

5 eggs
150 grams dark brown sugar
150 grams plain flour
250 grams butter

Heat the castor sugar until it starts browning, add the orange juice.
Place the fruit and nuts into a large mixing bowl, add the vanilla extract, zest and heated syrup and mix. Add the whiskey and mix again until all the fruit has been coated. Cover with cling film and store in a cool dark place for at least 5 but no more than 7 days mixing once a day.

Beat the dark brown sugar into the egg and add the softened butter, fold in the flour into the mixture taking while ensuring the mixture does not split. If it does, don’t worry. Fold the cake mix into the fruit.
Line a 25cm baking tin with 4 layers of baking parchment, spoon mixture in, flatten, add another 4 layers of baking parchment on the top and smooth down until a smooth surface has been achieved and the cake mix does not go down, ensuring that there are no air pockets.
Bake in a cool oven (140 degrees Celsius) for 3 hours and 30 min, test the cake with a skewer, if it comes out clean then remove and cool, if not then cook for a further 10 minutes and retest, repeat until cooked.
Store the cake once cooled in an airtight container until it’s time to ice.

To ice the cake, brush a thin coat of apricot jam over the cake and place a thin layer of golden marzipan on top and the sides ensuring as tight a fit as possible. Glaze the marzipan with apricot jam and then cover with fondant icing. Decorate as you see fit using coloured fondant, or silver sugar beads.
If you do not wish to ice the cake, glaze it with apricot jam and cover the top with assorted nuts, and glaze the nuts with the jam. Tie a large ribbon around the cake.