5 Ingredient Christmas Fruit Cake with Gingerbread Houses

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

3 cups (500g) mixed dried fruit

1 cup (175g) Natura Dark Muscovado Sugar

125g butter

2 cups self-raising flour

1 egg

Grease and double-line a 24cm-cake tin. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Placed dried fruit, sugar and 1 ½ cups 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 double-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 cake flour

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

½ tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

50g Natura Dark Muscovado Sugar

1 tbsp whole milk

75g butter

2 tbsp candied peel, finely chopped or Christmas fruit mince

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

2 cups 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. 

 Disclaimer: This post has been created in collaboration with Natura Sugars who produce a range of really special sugars that are unrefined and made according to traditional Mauritian sugar-making techniques. The sugars are non-GM, non-irradiated and unbleached with no preservatives, colourants or syrups added which basically means they are pure, natural and packed with flavour!  They're available from Spar, Checkers and Pick 'n Pay stores. 

How to make a gingerbread house

I've always been a bit of an overachiever but this past week, I seriously outdid myself. I made two gingerbread houses in one week. Even saying that sentence exhausts me but oh what fun I had! This is not one of those posts where I promise (and cross my heart) that this is a simple recipe that you can throw together in 20 minutes flat blah blah blah. Be warned; baking a gingerbread house is not for the faint-hearted. These cute little edible cottages exist (and are made) for the sole purpose of satisfying your inner child. Who hasn't dreamed of being Hansel or Gretel and discovering a huge edible house made of sweets? No one, that's who. It's one of the fairytales we can actually come close to creating in our kitchens. And it's even more fun if you prepare the pieces and then get your kids involved (if you don't have your own, borrow some) and let your imaginations run wild. If I made one of these again, I'm definitely going to make a seaside gingerbread cottage - more South African you cannot get! Oh and did I mention that it makes a show-stopper of a table centrepiece for Christmas dinner? Put a candle or fairy lights inside for some twinkle and you're good to go. So, I do urge you to make one (just one!) if not for any other reason but so you can say you did. 

 Cedric the Snowman showing off his posh palace

Styling and photography by Katelyn Williams

Gingerbread house

Serves 10-12

150g butter

½ cup demarera sugar

2/3 cup golden syrup

1 egg

3 cups cake flour, sifted

1 tbsp corn flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

Icing

4 cups icing sugar

3 egg whites

½ tsp cream of tartar

variety of sweets to decorate

Preheat oven to 180C. Place the butter, sugar and golden syrup in an electric mixer and beat for 5 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add the egg and beat until well combined. Add the flour, cornflour, baking power, bicarbonate of soda and ginger and mix until a smooth dough forms. Add a little more flour if necessary. Roll the dough out to ½ cm thick and using the templates, cut the parts of the gingerbread house out with a knife. Place on a lined baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until dark golden.

To make the icing, place the sugar, whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a mixer and beat for 4-5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Place the icing in a piping ready to assemble the house. To assemble the house, cut each gingerbread sheet in half. Set aside four halves (two for the walls and two for the roof). From the remaining two halves, cut two even triangles from the top to create the side walls. Secure one of the rectangles and one of the side walls to a cake board with the icing and allow to dry. Support the walls against a tall jar or vase. Secure the other walls using the icing and allow to dry completely before the next step. Using icing, secure each of the roof pieces to the sides of the house and allow to dry completely.

Use the icing to decorate the rest of the house using sweets.