Chocolate Mousse Christmas Fruit Cake

Chocolate Mousse Christmas Fruit Cake

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Meet your new Christmas cake! It’s a moist chocolate fruit cake made with Food Lovers’ Market Luxury Festive Cake Mix, which is loaded with raisins, sultanas, cherries, flaked almonds, candied fruit and citrus peel. I also added some molasses and 70% dark chocolate, to really make it deep and dark! Of course the moist chocolate fruit cake wasn’t enough on it’s own so I sandwiched the layers together with a velvety chocolate mousse and a shiny gold-lustred mirror glaze. No marzipan or fondant icing in sight! Mirror, mirror, who’s the fairest cake of them all? Mine. Obviously.

The chocolate fruit cake itself is super moist – what’s the secret? I measured out the Food Lover’s Market Luxury Festive Cake Mix and then soaked it with some other delicious goodies like cherries and prunes overnight. This really plumps up the fruit and keeps it moist. Check out some of these other tips on how to keep your cake moist –  the apple idea is very clever!

Now, let’s talk about that shiny mirror glaze. I know it looks intimidating but I promise you that it’s WAY easier than covering a cake in fondant. And it goes without saying that it tastes better too. The best thing about this mousse cake, is that you can make it and freeze it weeks in advance, then the day before, pour over the mirror glaze and stick it in the fridge to defrost. And if you think it’s too early to start thinking about Christmas, it’s just 6 weeks away – eeek!

Chocolate Mousse Christmas Cake

Ingredients

  • Chocolate Mousse Fruit Cake
  • Serves 8-10
  • 215g Food Lovers’ Market fruit cake mix
  • 150g dried soft prunes, chopped
  • 100g glace cherries
  • 90g salted butter, softened
  • 90g dark muscovado sugar
  • 60ml molasses (or honey)
  • 60ml spiced rum (or brandy), plus extra for soaking
  • zest and juice of 1 orange
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tbsp The Kate Tin Cocoa Powder
  • 2 large eggs
  • 75g self-raising flour
  • 50g flaked almonds, toasted
  • 50g The Kate Tin Dark Baking Chocolate, chopped roughly
  • Chocolate Mousse
  • 375ml whipping cream, divided
  • 170g The Kate Tin Dark Baking Chocolate, chopped
  • 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • Chocolate Glaze
  • ½ cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ½ cup cream
  • ½ cup The Kate Tin Cocoa Powder, sifted
  • 1 ½ Tbsp gelatine powder

Instructions

  1. Place the fruit cake mix, prunes, cherries, butter, sugar, molasses, rum, zest and juice and spices in a large saucepan and heat gently until the butter is melted. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely then cover and allow to stand overnight. Preheat the oven to 150C. Line 1 x deep cake tin 20cm round, with a double layer of baking paper. To the soaked fruit cake mix, add the eggs, flour, almonds and dark chocolate chunks. Pour the mixture into the lined cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for 1 ½ hours. A skewer inserted into the middle should still have a few crumbs clinging to it. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the cake tins. Once completely cool, cut the cake in 3 so you have 3 cake layers. Wash the cake tin and line the sides with a 10cm high collar made from foil or baking paper – this is to extend the height of the pan. Set aside.
  2. To make the mousse, whip half the cream to stiff peaks then refrigerate until needed. Heat the rest of the cream to just below boiling point, then pour over the chopped chocolate. Allow to stand for a few minutes then stir until smooth. Set aside. Whip egg yolks on high speed in a stand mixer until light and stiff. Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer until the syrup reaches 120 degrees celcius on a sugar thermometer. Start whipping the egg yolks again and gradually add the hot sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Whip until the mixture has doubled in volume and is body temperature.
  3. Test the temperature of the ganache (it should also be body temperature), then fold the ganache into the whipped yolks. Fold in the whipped cream in 2 batches.
  4. To assemble, place a fruit cake layer in the bottom of the prepared cake tin. Brush the cake layer with the extra rum or brandy, pour in 1/3 of the chocolate mousse, then alternate with fruit cake, rum and more mousse, ending with the chocolate mousse. Make sure to press the cake layers down into the mousse. Freeze the cake for at least 4 hours or overnight.
  5. To make the glaze, bring the water, sugar and cream to the boil. Whisk in the cocoa and simmer for 4 minutes while stirring. Remove from the heat. Sprinkle the gelatin over ¼ cup of cold water, allow it to absorb and then whisk this into the hot cocoa mixture to dissolve. Allow to cool completely at room temperature.
  6. To assemble the cake, remove from the freezer and unmould (use a hair dryer on low setting to release it if necessary). Peel away the paper collar and place the cake on a cooling rack with a baking sheet underneath. Pour the glaze over the top of the cake in one go, making sure it drips down the sides evenly. Store in the fridge until ready to serve.

Notes

TIP To add gold to the glaze, add a few drops of liquid gold lustre (available at baking shops) before pouring onto the cake.

https://thekatetin.com/chocolate-mousse-christmas-fruit-cake-mirror-glaze/

5-Ingredient Christmas Cake with Gingerbread Houses

5-Ingredient Christmas Cake with Gingerbread Houses

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Is it a gingerbread house? Or a Christmas cake? Well, this is what happens when a mommy fruit cake and a daddy gingerbread house love each other VERY much. It’s such a fun way to decorate a fruit cake and even better, there is not a single piece of that horrid white fondant or persipan icing to be seen!
First up, the fruit cake. Great Aunt May strikes again with one of her famous recipes and this one is her ‘never-fail’ fruitcake. What I love most about it, is that it only has 5 ingredients, but let’s be honest, I had you at ‘never fail’ right?! Because it only has 5 ingredients, they have to be seriously good ingredients and trust me, you do not want to switch out the Natura Dark Muscovado Sugar for anything other than the real deal ‘cos it elevates the humble fruit cake to a point where I want to eat the entire thing. It adds such a gorgeous dark, rich, molasses flavour that you just can’t replicate.
The next part: the gingerbread houses. How cute are they? Like a little gingerbread village! You can go totally crazy with decorating them or even better, give the already-baked cookies to your kids, let them make their own houses using sweets and sprinkles and then just stick them around your cake!  This cake is such a show-stopper that you could put it on the table as a decoration that is good enough to eat. And speaking of eating, for those of you worried about your waistlines this festive season, you needn’t worry about this cake, it has so much dried fruit in it, one slice is basically one of your five-a-day!

Never-Fail 5 Ingredient Fruit Cake

(Great Aunt May’s recipe)

Makes 1 x 24cm cake

500g (750ml) mixed dried fruit

175g (250ml) Natura Molasses Sugar 

125g salted butter

250g (500ml) self-raising flour

1 large egg

Grease and double-line a 24cm-cake tin. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Placed dried fruit, sugar and 375ml water in a saucepan with the butter and allow to simmer for 25 minutes. Allow to cool. Stir in the flour and egg and mix well.

Pour into a triple-lined greased 24cm cake tin and bake for 1 ½ – 2 hours on the lowest oven shelf until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool completely.

 

VARIATIONS This is the fun part where you can tailor the recipe to suit whatever you fancy!

Spices and Flavourings: Mixed spice, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove – add as much as you like (about 3 tsp in total should do it)

Nuts: Subsitute some of the dried fruit for hazelnuts, pistachios, almonds, pecans or walnuts

Fruit: Orange or lemon zest, chopped candied fruit or cherries – just make sure to remove a portion of the mixed dried fruit and replace it with the same amount.

Spiced Ginger Biscuit Houses

Makes 24

100g self-raising flour

2 tsp mixed spice

a pinch of salt

50g Natura Molasses Sugar

1 tbsp milk

75g salted butter

2 tbsp candied peel, finely chopped or Christmas fruit mince (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Mix together the dry ingredients then add the wet ingredients and combine to form a dough (you can do this in a stand mixer using the dough or paddle attachment).  Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to 1/2 cm thick.

Cut out house shapes using a sharp knife then place on a baking tray.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool completely before icing.

Royal Icing

1 egg white, beaten

260g (500ml) Natura Demerara Icing Sugar, sifted

squeeze of lemon juice

To make the royal icing, whisk the egg white gently then add the icing sugar until a stiff paste forms. Add the lemon juice and stir before placing in a piping bag.

Pipe the frosting onto the biscuits in patterns (you can make more colourful houses by using sweets and sprinkles) and allow to dry thoroughly. Then use spread the remaining royal icing around the outside of the cake and stick the houses in place. Dust with extra icing sugar to serve.