Christmas fruit cake with meringue tower
Sugar and spice and all things nice – this meringue tower takes your Christmas fruit cake to the next level, creating a stunning visual centrepiece for your festive table.
for fruit cake
400g raisins
400g sultanas
110g currants
150g halved red glacé cherries
150g pitted prunes, coarsely chopped
zest and juice of 1 orange
120g honey
125ml brandy, plus 2 tbsp extra
250g butter, softened but not melted
200g firmly packed Muscovado sugar
5 eggs
185g plain flour
Combine fruit, zest and juice, honey and brandy in large bowl, cover, allow to steep at least overnight.
Preheat oven to 150C. Line base and sides of a deep 20cm-square cake pan with four thicknesses of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above sides of pan.
Beat butter and sugar in a bowl with electric mixer until just combined, beat in eggs, one at a time, until just combined between additions. Mixture may curdle at this point, but will come together later.
Add butter mixture to fruit mixture with flour. Spread mixture into pan and smooth the top.
Tap the cake pan on the bench to break up any air bubbles. Cover the surface with a double layer of baking paper and then cover the tin loosely with foil. Allow to cook for
3 hours.
Remove cake from oven, brush with extra brandy. Cover pan tightly with foil, cool cake in pan. Cake will keep well wrapped for about a month and can also be frozen.
for meringue tower
2 egg whites
1½cups caster sugar
½tsp vanilla
1tsp vinegar
1tsp cornflour
4tbsp boiling water
edible gold spray
white chocolate, melted
Place egg whites, sugar, vanilla, vinegar, cornflour and water into bowl of stand mixer, beat on high speed until mixture is very stiff approx. 15 minutes.
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Onto prepared paper tray, pipe at least 90 small-sized meringues 3cm in diameter.
Pipe at least another 50 tiny meringues ranging between 1-2cm. These will be used to fill in the gaps.
Bake at 150C for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 120C for a further 30 minutes. Allow to cool and fully dry out in the turned off oven.
If you don’t have a small croquembouche tower, make one using gold or buff coloured cardboard. Ultimately, it should stand at 30cm with approx. 12cm base.
Spray the small meringues with edible gold paint as you need them.
Use melted white chocolate to set each white meringue on the cone tower, starting from the bottom.
Fill in any gaps with the sprayed gold meringues.
When ready to serve, set the tower on top of the Christmas cake, finished off with a white satin ribbon around it. Invite guests to break off a meringue to eat with their cake.
This recipe first appeared in the November 2024 issue of SALIFE magazine.
