Recipe - Christmas Cake West Indian Style

Fruit Mixture
1 cup Raisins
1 cup Currants
One half cup Candied cherries
One half cup Candied citrus peel
1 cup Mixed dried fruit
1 cup Rum
1 cup Sweet sherry or port wine
Cake
One half pound Butter; at room temperature
One half cup Brown sugar
4 Eggs
2 cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking powder
1 teaspoon Ground ginger
1 teaspoon Ground nutmeg
3 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
One half teaspoon Ground cloves
One half teaspoon Ground allspice
2 One half teaspoon Lemon essence
2 One half teaspoon Almond essence
1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
One fourth cup Brown food coloring; up to
One half cup
One half cup Rum
Additional rum for basting
during storage

Fruit Mixture: Mix together all the ingredients and store in a tightly
sealed jar for at least 1 month

The Cake: Prepare a 10" deep round cake baking tin or a 13" x 9" baking tin
by lining it with two layers of waxed paper, greasing between the layers.
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. In a large bowl, cream together the butter
and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time,
mixing well after each addition. Sift the flour, baking powder and all the
dry spices together. Add the lemon essence, almond essence and vanilla
essence to the fruit mixture. By hand, stir tablespoonsful of the flour
mixture and the fruit mixture alternately into the butter, sugar and egg
mixture. Add the browning gradually, stirring until a deepish brown colour
is reached. Turn the cake mixture into the baking tin, smooth the top and
bake in the oven for 34 hours or until a skewer or wooden toothpick,
inserted, comes out clean. This can take an additional hour or two. Remove
the cake from the oven, prick it all over with a skewer or toothpick and
pour the rum all over it. Remove the cake from the tin when it is cool,
wrap it tightly in waxed paper, place it in an airtight container and leave
for a month for best flavour. Every week, prick the cake with a skewer and
pour on about 1 tablespoon of rum. (Makes one 5 pound cake. )

Serve with Hard Rum Sauce.

Full recipe name is LaurelAnn's Wedding Cake or Christmas Cake West Indian
Style

Recipe by: Cooking with Caribbean Rum by LaurelAnn Morley, '91, p. 72

Posted to TNT Prodigy's Recipe Exchange Newsletter by Lou Parris
lbparris@earthlink.net on Oct 31, 1997