Blue Ribbon Christmas Cake

Dense, rich and full of rum-soaked nuts, a classic Christmas cake is a lot like... well, you're probably a better joke teller than I am, so please deliver the punchline of your choosing.

Kidding aside, there's something reassuring about the warm fruit and spice flavours and heartwarming in the sturdy resilience of its form that gives this bake a kind of timeless feeling. The provenance of the blue ribbon in the title is unclear - it was inherited with the source recipe, so why don't we just say it was well-deserved and well-earned.

Although the ingredient list for this cake may seem somewhat daunting, don't fret! Most of your ingredients will go into the fruit stewing that you'll prepare ahead of time, and the others will make up the flour and spice mix. Once you get started assembling, everything should be (fingers crossed!) pretty straightforward. Just try to make sure that the eggs and butter are at room temperature before you start baking - it's going to make a difference in the end result.

You can use any kind of dried fruit you want, just as long as you keep it to the same total weight below. Try to mix up the tastes and textures a little, so you can get little mini-flavour bombs of tart, sweet and zesty throughout your cake. Similarly, you can substitute the rum for whiskey, brandy or sherry if that's what you have in your drinks cabinet.

Once you've put the whole thing in the oven, just keep an eye on it from time to time. You can control the colour of the cake by turning the tin occasionally (especially if your oven has reliability issues), and if it's browning too fast, just cover it with some foil.

For maximum flavour, see if you can't make your cake around two months before your Christmas. It seems like a long-ass time, but it gives you time to feed it by brushing the surface at regular intervals with the liquor you used in your bake. This will maintain the moisture of your cake and allow the flavours to blend and meld. It's all good if you can't make this happen, as your cake will still taste a-OK.

If you've gone a bit overboard and Christmas dinner and don't have time to polish off every last cake crumb, you can rest easy. Store it right and this will last almost forever.