Mini Christmas Cakes: Six Rich Fruit Cakes From One Fluted Tin

Header picture: illustration.

I want to give a few Christmas cakes away this year, and baking five full-size ones for five front doors is not happening. Nobody wants to be handed a foil-wrapped brick the weight of a paving slab anyway. They'd politely put it in a cupboard and find it again in February.

So I'm making them small. One batch fills a mini fluted cake tin, gives you six individual fruit cakes, and the whole lot is baked, fed and wrapped well before December.

Why small works better

A big fruit cake is a commitment. It takes three hours in the oven, a month of feeding, and a household that actually likes fruit cake, and I've got three kids and not one of them will go near it. A small one is a single slice and a cup of tea for whoever wants it, and the rest go to people who do. If you want the full-size version, our air fryer Christmas cake is a one-tin loaf, and the classic Christmas cake recipe is the deep round one.

The other thing in its favour is timing. Small cakes bake in under an hour and soak up brandy much faster than a big one, so you don't need to start in September. Bake them any time from now until the middle of November and they'll still get a few weeks of feeding.

The tin

The tin does most of the work here, because a fluted cup is the difference between a plain little cake and one that looks decorated before you've touched it. Each cup is 9.5cm across, which is a generous single portion, and the ridges mean you need hardly any icing.

Ours is 0.8mm carbon steel with a non-stick coating made without PTFE or PFOA. The thickness matters for fruit cake in particular, because it browns the sides ahead of the top, which is exactly what you want for a long, gentle bake, and it doesn't flex or warp at the low temperature. It also comes with our 10-year warranty. Hand wash it and dry it straight away, which is most of the care and use guide.

If you'd rather have a dozen smaller ones, a 12 cup muffin tray works for the same mix. They bake much quicker, so start checking at twenty minutes. Our mini fluted tin buying guide and the mini ring cake guide cover choosing a tin and getting the cakes out whole, and the full range is on the mini cake tins page. Don't use silicone for these, as it blocks the heat and the cakes come out pale and gummy underneath.

The mix

This makes six cakes, one for each cup. The recipe is a scaled-down version of a standard rich fruit cake, and the weights are the point: fruit cake barely rises, so the amount you put in each cup is the amount you get out.

• 300g mixed dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants, with some chopped glacé cherries and peel if you like them)
• 4 tablespoons brandy, plus a little more for feeding (orange juice works if you'd rather not use alcohol)
• Zest of 1 orange
• 100g soft butter
• 100g dark muscovado sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon black treacle
• 125g plain flour
• 40g ground almonds
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice and half a teaspoon of cinnamon
• A pinch of salt

Feeding, wrapping and giving them away

While the cakes are still warm, prick the tops a few times with a skewer and spoon over a teaspoon of brandy each. After that, feed them once a week with another teaspoon until you wrap them for good. Small cakes soak quickly, so there's no need for the drip-by-drip routine you'd give a big one.

Once they're cool, wrap each one in baking paper, then in foil, and keep them in a tin in a cool, dark place. I'd treat about a month as comfortable at room temperature, and if you want them to last longer than that, wrap them tightly and freeze them.

To finish, brush the tops with warmed apricot jam, press on a disc of marzipan if you like it, and add a few glacé cherries. A cake that's already shaped like this doesn't need much else. If you're stuck for what else to give, our baking gifts guide has the tins, and the make-ahead mince pies are the other thing worth doing in October.

What goes wrong

Dry cakes are almost always overbaked. Small cakes go from done to dry in a few minutes, so check at 40 and trust the skewer, not the clock. Burnt edges are the other one, and a piece of foil over the tin fixes most of it. And if a cake sticks, it was under-greased: every flute needs a coat, including the bottoms of the ridges.

The short version is to soak the fruit, grease every flute, weigh about 140g into each cup and bake low and slowly, and you end up with six little cakes you can pop in the post.