Food & Entertaining - Recipes

Nigella's incredibly easy chocolate fruitcake

By: Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson shares how to update this holiday classic with a little touch of chocolate.

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I think it's hard to improve on this cake: dark, damp, squidgy and luscious; you don't taste the chocolate full-on -- the cocoa just leaves a hint of smokey richness. Nor, I should add, do you taste the prunes. When I was making this cake for my TV programme, the cameraman, Wee Nev (Neville Kidd, the eminent DOP, for all IMDb-addicts) said with force “Eugh, I HATE prunes!” But when he ate it, later, he proclaimed it to be the best Christmas cake he'd ever had. And he asked for the recipe so that he could ask his wife to make it for Christmas. I don't mean to crow; it sounds so undignified. But it's important that you know how universally seductive this cake is, for all that it starts off "350g prunes".

I don't know what it is in the prunes that gives the cake its damp bounciness; all I know is that it works. You don't need to make this in advance, although you can, and you don't have to do anything much to make it, either. You just melt everything together, give or take, in a saucepan, pour from saucepan to cake tin and bake. It needs no icing, though I have suggested -- see p.267 if you need help with stockists -- a little festive decoration, below.

And there's no reason why you couldn't vary this method to make a Plain Dark Fruit Cake: just replace the Tia Maria with rum (or brandy if you prefer), making up the sweetness by adding a heaped tablespoon of marmalade; take out the cocoa, adding 2 tablespoons of flour to the 150g; and decorate with a sprig of holly or any of the suggestions below.

Ingredients