It’s that time of year when certain things are expected of us. One of them is to have a Christmas cake made and available to all. The problem is not everyone likes or has the time to make a Christmas cake. That is where this delicious easy quick Fake Christmas Cake comes into play. In an earlier post, for a Chocolate Peppermint Drip Cake, I spoke of a friend of mine that wanted a way to save time but still have several festive bakes. So I came up with several cakes that use box mixes to help speed things up. And this one has all the flavours of a classic Christmas cake but is more like a sponge cake and is so quick and easy to make.
Fake Christmas Cake.
So let’s start with the cake itself. For ease, I used a vanilla cake box mix as the base. It’s easy and its quick and it will save you quite a bit of time. To the box mix, I added eggs, melted butter, milk and a touch of vanilla extract. To amp, up the Christmas cake feeling, I added a touch of dark rum (completely optional, but highly recommended). A whole host of sweet spices, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and allspice. Glace cherries and the pièce de résistance a jar of sweet mincemeat.
Yep, you read that right, sweet mincemeat. This ingredient will give your fake Christmas cake every required festive flavour you could require or need.
Decorating.
To decorate this fake Christmas cake I kept things looking simple. I first gave it a thin layer of vanilla buttercream, partly as an adhesive and partly for flavour. I then topped it with a layer of fondant icing. To make it even easier I bought ready rolled icing, so all I had to do was place it on the cake, trim it a little and it was done. With the offcuts, I cut out some little holly leaves and sprayed the cake with a little silver glitter. The decorating took me around 15 minutes to achieve.
You can decorate this fake Christmas cake in whichever way you see fit. Make it super elaborate or keep it super simple, as I did.
Box mix.
As I mentioned this cake is made with a box mix, but by all means, make your vanilla sponge from scratch. Then add the spices to the flour and the inclusions into the finished batter before placing it into your baking tin.
This fake Christmas cake is the perfect solution for those that either don’t like traditional Christmas cake or those that just don’t have the time to make one.
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Easy Quick Fake Christmas Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 vanilla box cake mix (I used Betty Crocker Velvety Vanilla)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 3 large eggs
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter - melted
- 120 millilitres milk (1/2 cup)
- 4 tablespoons dark rum
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 90 grams glace cherries - halved (1/2 cup)
- 415 grams sweet mincemeat - 1 standard jar (14.5 ounces or 1 and 1/4 cups)
Frosting
- 100 grams unsalted butter (1/2 cup)
- 120 grams icing sugar (1 cup)
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing
- 450 grams ready rolled fondant icing (16 ounces )
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4 and lightly grease and line a 10 inch/25 cm loose bottom cake tin.
- In a large mixing bowl add in the vanilla cake mix and all the spices and give them a good whisking all together.
- Add in the eggs, melted butter, milk, rum and vanilla extract and mix everything together.
- Then fold in the sweet mincemeat and glace cherry halves into the cake batter.
- Pour the batter into your cake tin and place it into the oven.
- Check on your cake at the 30-minute mark by placing a pick into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean then your cake is baked through. If not then give it another few minutes.
- Once the cake is baked through, take it out of the oven and leave it in the tin for 5 minutes. Then take the cake out of the tin and place it on a wire rack to fully cool down.
Frosting
- Beat the butter until it is pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the icing sugar until everything is well combined.
- Add in the milk and vanilla extract and mix until you have a smooth creamy frosting.
- Once the cake is cool, cover the cake with the frosting. You will only have a thin layer but this is what you are after.
Icing
- Gently place the icing over your cake and smooth the edges down over the sides.
- Decorate the cake as you wish.
Notes
- You can use any kind of milk that you like.
- If you don't want to use dark rum then replace the rum with more milk.
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i’m all about shortcuts sometimes! this is a truly beautiful cake and you’ve definitely enhanced it!
Thank you, Grace. I do love a good shortcut 🙂
This is such a clever shortcut to an amazing looking cake! Thanks for sharing this recipe! Have a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the New Year!
Miriam xx
Thanks, Miriam. Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas.
Neat cake — easy and looks terrific. And tastes wonderful, I’m sure. Thanks. And Happy Holidays!
Thanks, John. I do love a shortcut 🙂 Happy Holidays.
beautiful cake , thanks for sharing
Thanks, Joseph.
Pretty cake!
Thank you, Shauna.
I am most excited to have your recipe for fondant icing!! Yay! The cake looks wonderful!
I just realized you used rolled fondant. Do you have a recipe for true fondant icing? I want to make petit-fours for the holidays… thanks, Emma!
Hi David, yes this time I used ready made. On the rare occasion I have made it from scratch I have used the following recipe
https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/food/cooking-tips/how-to-make-fondant-icing
I have made it 3 possibly 4 times using this recipe. Side note I always used vegetarian gelatine and not the pork version. But it mentions that in the recipe. Happy baking
Thanks, Emma – I wil check it out right now!
wow..this looks way better than any classic Christmas cakes! Good job, Emma. I love the simple decoration…simply gorgeous!
Thank you Angie