How Can I Make An Extra Deep Traditional Christmas Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Traditional Christmas Cake (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) is a rich fruit cake that is more moist than many fruit cakes as it is made with a mixture of flour and ground almonds (almond meal). The recipe gives the measurements for three sizes of cake. If you wanted to make an extra deep cake then you would need to use the quantity of ingredients for a cake that is slightly larger that your cake pan size. So for a 7-inch/18cm cake pan you would use the quantity of ingredients for the medium-sized cake (the 23cm/9-inch cake or middle column of the ingredients chart in the book).

The cake pan will be very full of batter, so make sure that the double layer of parchment paper lining inside the cake pan has a collar that rises above the top of the pan by at least 10cm/4 inches. Then if the cake rises slightly the batter should not overflow. Deep cakes take longer to bake and we would estimate that the baking time is likely to be 2½ - 3 hours. A cake tester inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean, so we suggest that you start checking after 2½ hours and then check at 10 minute intervals after that. It is a good idea to wrap brown paper or newspaper around the outside of the cake pan to reduce the risk of scorching, though this may extend the baking time a little more, and if the top of the cake starts to look too dark then cover it with foil. However, we would mention that as we have not tried baking a deep version of this cake, we are unable to guarantee the results.