Ginger Christmas Cake

Method

1. Place Opies Crystallised Ginger, Opies Cocktail Cherries, currants and ginger wine into a bowl, cover and soak for 2 hours (ideally overnight).

2. Grease a 15cm cake tin and line with baking paper. Pre heat the oven to 150°C (140°C fan assisted).

3. Pour 20g of the syrup from Opies Stem Ginger and set aside. Place the rest of the jar (syrup and ginger pieces) into a food processor and whizz to make a puree.

4. In a large bowl, cream unsalted butter and dark muscovado sugar together until light and fluffy. Whisk the eggs together and add to the mixture a tablespoon at a time, beating well in between additions.

5. Gently fold the flour, mixed spice, soaked fruit, pureed stem ginger into the butter and egg mixture. Scoop the mix into the prepared tin, smooth the surface. Wrap the tin in a couple of sheets of newspaper and place a slim wad of newspaper on the shelf of your oven shelf to sit the cake on. Bake for 2 hours.

6. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

7. To ice: Brush a thin layer of reserved ginger syrup over the cake. Roll out the marzipan
to ½ cm thick and lay over cake. Trim the edges and leave to set for a few hours.

8 Place the icing sugar, egg whites, lemon juice and glycerine into a large bowl
whisk until stiff peaks form. Cover the cake in icing ensuring it is spread
evenly and use a palette knife to create some peaks.