To be honest, it isn’t really LIGHT. A pound of dried fruit, five eggs, a whole packet of butter – better not even start counting calories. But compared to the traditional Christmas cake it’s almost a diet food.
I think the classic Christmas cake is a bit too much – you can’t see the cake for the fruit, and it’s soaked in booze, and it’s iced to death on top of a marzipan layer. A kid in a sweet shop production. No wonder in Yorkshire you serve blue cheese with it, to balance the sickly sweetness a little.
My fruit cake here is still rich, as admitted, but it’s sober – the spoonful of rum barely counts as booze. It’s got dried fruits for sure, but you can actually see CAKE amongst them and the cake mix is lighter in colour. It has no marzipan or royal icing – let alone both. The only thing I kind of miss is a pretty ribbon tied around it – but that can be easily fixed…
It keeps very well but needn’t be made weeks ahead of Christmas – tastes best when it had been standing for a couple of days and will last for two weeks easily. Wrap it in foil, keep in a cool place or even the fridge and if ice it you must – do it on the day you serve it.