Uses the spices associated with Christmas cakes, with nary a raisin nor glazed orange peel bit to be seen.
... as in my (current) avatar. It's delicious, and will be one of my Christmas cakes this year.
- you can buy stem ginger in Jelmoli deli (Asian food section) or Asian food stores
- use "Rohzucker, grob" available at your local supermarket instead of golden caster sugar
- use dark treacle, available at Globus or Jelmoli deli, instead of molasses syrup
By: Wendy Adams
Break Studios Contributing Writer
Try something different during the holidays with an easy Christmas cake recipe. This ingenious no bake Christmas cake is made from popcorn and Christmas candy.
To make an easy Christmas cake, you will need:
4 quarts popcorn, popped
1 pound red and green M&M’s
1 cup Peanuts
1⁄2 cup Butter
1/3 cup Vegetable oil
2 cups Marshmallows
Bundt cake pan
Pop the popcorn, measure out 4 quarts and set aside in a large bowl. Combine M&M’s and peanuts with the popcorn and mix thoroughly.
Melt ingredients. Combine vegetable oil, butter, and marshmallows in a saucepan and melt over a medium heat stirring frequently. Pour the melted ingredients over the popcorn mixture and mix thoroughly with a strong wooden spoon.
Prepare the bundt pan. Spray the inside of the bundt pan with vegetable no stick spray or generously grease the bundt pan with a coat of butter. Spoon the easy Christmas cake mixture into the bundt pan and press it in place. Refrigerate until the easy Christmas cake is completely cool.
Remove the easy Christmas cake from the bundt pan. Remove the easy Christmas cake from the refrigerator and place the bundt pan in a sink full of warm water to loosen the popcorn cake. When the easy Christmas cake loosens from the bundt pan, remove it from the water, dry the outside of the bundt pan, place a plate over the top of the pan, and turn over. The easy Christmas cake will drop gently onto the plate. Decorate the top of the easy Christmas cake with red and green M&M’s.
Tips: This easy Christmas cake can be made with chocolate or white chocolate chips, a chopped up candy bar, coconut and gummy bears or your favorite candy. When placing the bundt pan in a sink of warm water make sure not to fill the sink so high that it overflows the pan.
It sounds awfully delicious
I agree with the Yule Log (Bûche de Noël). Great idea for a festive cake without the fruit.
alternatively, cardamom (?) crumb cake is yummy as well...
ngredients for the "Crumbs":
1/2 Cup (64g) All purpose flour
1/2 Cup (60g) Coarsely chopped walnuts
1/3 Cup (70g) Castor sugar
1 Tbs Grated orange zest
1/2 Tsp Instant espresso powder
1/2 Tsp Ground cardamom
1/2 Stick (4 tbsp/60g) Unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature
Ingredients for the "Cake":
2 Cups (255g) All purpose flour
2 Tsps Baking powder
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 1/4 Tsps Ground cardamom
1 Tsp Instant espresso powder
2/3 Cup (140g) Castor sugar
2 Tbs Finely grated orange zest
1 Stick (8 tbsp/120g) Unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 Large Eggs (~63g)
1/2 Cup (120g/ml) Whole milk
1/2 Cup (120g/ml) Strong coffee, cooled
1 1/2 Tsp Pure vanilla extract or paste
Method for the "Crumbs":
1. Put all the ingredients except the butter in a bowl and toss them together with a spatula just to blend.
2. Add the butter and, using your fingers or the spatula, mix everything together until you have crumbs of different sizes.
3. Set the crumbs aside.
Method for the "Cake":
4. Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 200° C (400° F).
5. Butter an 20x20cm (8 inch square) pan, dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess. Put the pan on a baking sheet.
6. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom, and espresso powder in a large bowl.
7. Turn the dry ingredients out onto a sheet of wax paper and put the sugar and zest in the bowl. Rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong, then return the dry ingredients to the bowl and whisk to blend.
8. Put the remaining ingredients in another bowl and whisk them to blend.
9. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir - don't beat - to mix.
10. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and top with a thick, even layer of the crumbs. 11. Pat the crumbs ever so gently into the batter.
12. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cake has risen (it will crown), the crumbs are golden and a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
13. Transfer to a rack to cool.
The test pastries (using store bought pastry sheets but I'll probably make my own for most of it) have been delicious, perhaps unsurprisingly tasing a little like an apple strudel but without the evil raisins.
I plan to divide the mix up into three batches and keep one as it is, add raisins to another, and cranberries to the other, and hope they all turn out ok!
250g flour
1tsp bicarb of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
100g butter
100g brown sugar
150g treacle*
150g golden syrup*
2 eggs beaten
1/4 pint boiling water
Grease & line a 8in square tin (although I think it'd also be good as a loaf shape). Sift flour, bicarb and spices into a big bowl. Melt the butter, sugar, treacle and syrup over a gentle heat until the sugar dissolves - put it to one side to cool a bit then pour into the flour, stir in the eggs and last add the boiling water. Pour into the tin and bake at 180 deg C for 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in the tin for a bit then turn out to finish cooling.
* OK, treacle and golden syrup - not easily available here. You can get both at the online expat shop. Treacle I believe you can get in globus. The treacle does make the difference though I have to say.... you could substitute molasses for the golden syrup but if you want the proper sticky texture then I think you need treacle for it.
I did a search for Christmas cakes for you and clicked the rating button for the best rated cakes to be listed first: http://allrecipes.com/Search/Recipes...ion=Descending
On anoter topic... Egg nog!! *yum*
I made this recipe last year:
If you're interested, do ask me for the recipe.
Sorry the image is so big! The cake suffered a bit in the car too.