Christmas cakes from around the world

‘Tis the season for holiday traditions, and home at Christmas wouldn’t be complete without the smell of a sweet treat wafting through the house.

Festive feasts certainly differ across the world, whether it’s a mince pie or Christmas pudding in the UK, a Malva pudding in South Africa or a walnut roll in Croatia. Here, our worldwide agents and associates take you on a tempting tour of their Christmas favourites.

AUSTRALIA – FRUIT CAKE

INGREDIENTS:

• ½ cup sultanas	• 250g butter
• ½ cup chopped raisins	• ¾ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup chopped dates	• 2 eggs
• 2 ½ cups fresh or frozen quandong, deseeded	• 2 cups plain flour
• ½ cup chopped glazed apricots	• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 cup pineapple	• 1 ½ cups macadamia nuts
• ¼ cup quandong jam	• 1 tsp ground bush tomato
• ¾ cup orange liqueur	• 1 tsp ground pepperberry
	• 1 tsp wattleseed, toasted and ground

INSTRUCTIONS:

Combine fruit, jam and liqueur in a large bowl and mix well.
Cover and stand overnight or for several days, stirring mixture occasionally.
Preheat oven to 140C.
Line the base and sides of a deep 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.
Beat butter and sugar in a small bowl until creamy. Add eggs. Add butter mix to fruit mixture and stir well. Stir in sifted flour and mixed spice, then macadamias, bush tomato, pepperberry and wattleseed.
Spread mixture evenly into cake tin. Bake for 3 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

CROATIA – ORHNJACA (WALNUT BREAD ROLL)

INGREDIENTS:

• 300g caster sugar	• 100ml honey
• 600ml milk	• 2 eggs
• 40g yeast	• ½ tsp salt
• 700g plain flour	• 500g walnuts
• 100g butter, melted	• 100g raisins – soaked in rum

INSTRUCTIONS:

For the dough, mix the sugar with 200ml of the warm milk and blend in the yeast and leave to rise for 15 minutes.
Mix together flour, yeast, salt, butter and egg yolks to make a dough. Beat with a wooden spoon.
Cover and let stand in a warm place until it doubles in size, this will take about 1 hour.
For the filling, beat egg whites until stiff. Heat the rest of the milk and once hot pour over the walnuts. Combine with sugar and honey and then allow to cool, then gently fold in the egg whites.
On a floured surface, divide the dough into two halves. Then, roll each section out so that it’s very thin.
Then split the walnut mix in half and fill both rolled out doughs evenly with the walnut filling.
Then roll up the dough.
Grease 2 bread pans and place a roll into each pan.
Brush the rolls with melted butter and bake at 180C for about 40 minutes or until they become golden. Leave them to cool in the pan.

SOUTH AFRICA – MALVA PUDDING

INGREDIENTS:

Sauce	Batter
• 350ml cream	• 30g butter
• 100g butter	• 100ml brown sugar
• 200ml brown sugar	• 45ml apricot jam
• ½ tsp salt	• 1 egg
	• 125ml milk
	• 250ml cake flour
	• ¼ tsp salt
	• ½ tsp vinegar

INSTRUCTIONS:

Sauce: Combine all ingredients for the sauce in a saucepan. Stirring continually over a high heat, bring the sauce to the boil. When boiling, remove from the heat.
For the batter, cream the butter and the sugar together until the butter is pale and soft. Beat in the jam and then the egg.
Separately mix the bicarbonate of soda and the milk. Sift the cake flour and the salt together and add to the batter, alternating with the milk. Then mix in the vinegar.
Grease a bowl and then pour in the batter mixture. Pour half of the sauce onto the mixture.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the malva pudding for 40 minutes or until risen and golden.
Remove from the oven and pour over the remaining sauce a little at a time until all the sauce is absorbed by the hot pudding.
Serve hot with custard, cream or ice cream.

UK – CHRISTMAS PUDDING

INGREDIENTS:

• 50g blanched almonds (chopped)	• 2 tbsp brandy
• 2 large cooking apples (peeled, cored and chopped)	• 250g packet butter
• 200g box candied peel (chopped)	• 175g unsalted butter softened
• ¾ of a nutmeg, grated	• grated zest of half an orange
• 1000g raisins	• 4 tbsp Brandy
• 150g plain flour	• 2 pieces of stem ginger, finely chopped
• 100g soft fresh white breadcrumbs
• 100g light muscovado sugar
• 3 eggs

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix the almonds, apples, candied peel, nutmeg, raisins, flour, breadcrumbs, light muscovado sugar, eggs and 2 tbsp brandy in a large bowl.
Holding the butter in its wrapper, grate a quarter of it into the bowl, then stir everything together. Repeat until all the butter is grated, then stir for 3-4 mins – the mixture is ready when it subsides slightly after each stir.
As per tradition, everyone should take a turn to stir, and as they do, make a wish.
Generously grease two bowls and put a circle of baking parchment in the bottom of each, pour in the pudding mixture. Cover with a double layer of baking parchment, allow extra for it to expand! At this point, you can also add a silver coin for good luck.
Now stand each bowl on a large sheet of foil and bring the edges up over the top, then put another sheet of foil over the top and bring it down underneath to make a double package (this makes the puddings watertight).
Boil the puddings for 8 hrs. Remove from the pans and leave to cool overnight. When cold, discard the wrappings and re-wrap. Store in a cool, dry place until Christmas.
To make the brandy butter, cream the butter with the orange zest and icing sugar. Gradually beat in the brandy or cognac and chopped stem ginger. Put in the fridge to set.
On Christmas Day, boil or oven steam for 1 hr, then unwrap.
To flame, warm 3-4 tbsp brandy in a small pan, pour it over the pudding and set light to it, be careful, and enjoy!

USA – GINGERBREAD HOUSE

INGREDIENTS:

• 175g butter	• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 200g brown soft sugar	• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp lemon zest	• 1 dessert spoon ground allspice
• 1 tbsp lemon juice	• 6 egg whites
• 150g black treacle	• 1700g icing sugar, sifted
• 2 eggs
• 375g flour

INSTRUCTIONS:

First cut out in thin cardboard: a side wall: 12x20cm; an end wall: 12x13cm, a triangular gable: 12x7.5x7.5cm and a roof rectangle, 12x23cm. Tape the rectangular end wall piece to the triangular gable piece: match the long side of the triangle, 12cm, to one of the 12cm sides of the end wall.
Mix butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice and treacle.
Then, beat in 2 eggs. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices together; stir all together.
Wrap dough in baking parchment, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
On a floured surface, divide dough into 6 portions, 2 slightly larger than the others.
Next, roll out the 4 smaller pieces to approximately the size of the side wall and the end wall with gable card templates; cut out two of each.
Roll out the rest of the dough, and cut into two rectangular roof pieces.
Then put all the gingerbread onto greased baking trays.
Preheat oven to 190C, and then bake gingerbread for 10 minutes, or until crisp. When removing from the oven, leave the gingerbread on the baking trays for a few minutes to set, then transfer to wire racks. Leave them overnight!
In a large bowl, lightly whisk 2 egg whites.
Beat in a third of the icing sugar and mix until it stands in firm peaks.
Pipe the edges of the gingerbread in order to stick them together into the shape as designed on the cardboard cut-outs.
Leave overnight to set firmly.
When ready to decorate, make the remaining icing by gently whisking 4 egg whites and the remaining icing sugar. You can use this to make snow, and as glue for other decorations.

And where better to bake a festive treat than in a beautifully appointed kitchen?

We've handpicked some examples of some of the best kitchens from around the world to create these Christmas cakes.