Opinion

Bake a nostalgic Christmas cake with Jaci's family recipe

By Jaci Hicken

Nov 23, 2025

Jaci Hicken, our seasoned journalist and trained chef, has been busy in the kitchen preparing easy, low-cost Christmas recipes that you can cook and share as personalised Christmas baked-goods gifts.

Growing up, I have vivid memories of Mum spending weeks making homemade Christmas cakes as gifts for our entire extended family.

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The laundry closet was filled with rich, dark coloured Christmas cakes, wrapped in foil, for what seemed like many months in the lead up to Christmas.

I’m not sure if anyone liked them or wanted them, but it is a Christmas memory of mine.

Mum’s lucky because this year she's getting the one I’ve just baked, as I am channelling my inner baked goods Christmas gift-giving gene this year.

Before we dive in, here are some essential tips that will ensure your Christmas cake turns out perfectly every time.

You can use any type of marmalade in step one.

Blood Orange marmalade was used, as it was what was on the shelf in the pantry.

In the video of this cake that you can online, step three was done in two parts, adding the brown sugar and egg, then flour and melted butter, to make it easier to mix together.

If a larger bowl is used, you could have mixed the four ingredients together at the same time.

You would have noticed by now that I use up what is in the house, so this recipe calls for dark rum (that was what was in the cupboard here), but you could use any dark spirit.

You would likely use brandy, but you could use Whiskey, or, if you want to throw the spirits to the wind, cognac, Cointreau, or bourbon.

At step six, you remove the cake from the oven and cover it with a layer of baking paper and aluminium foil.

This is to prevent the top of the cake from burning before the cake is cooked all the way through.

Ingredients

1.5 kg of dried fruit

150 grams of glace cherries

A 250-gram jar of marmalade

½ cup of dark rum

200 grams of brown sugar

5 eggs

250 grams of butter, melted

250 grams of Self-rising flour

An extra ½ cup of dark rum

Method

Combine the dried fruit, glace cherries, marmalade and the first ½ cup of dark rum. Mix well, then cover and leave to soak overnight.
The next day, preheat your oven to 160°C or 150°C if fan forced.
Add the brown sugar, eggs, flour, and melted butter, and mix until well combined.
Line and grease a 25 cm cake tin. Scoop the mixture into the cake tin.
Place the cake in the oven for 90 minutes.
After 90 minutes, remove the cake from the oven and cover with a sheet of baking paper and aluminium foil. This is to help stop the cake from burning. Then return the cake to the oven for another hour of cooking.
Once the cake is cooked, remove from the oven, remove the baking paper and aluminium foil and pour over the extra cup of dark rum. Leave the cake to cool in its tin.

Because you have poured over the dark rum, or whatever dark spirit you have used, the Christmas Cake should keep for a while, at least until you need to leave a piece out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas,

Jaci

Do you have a favourite family Christmas recipe? Share your favourite Christmas recipes with Jaci at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au.