Recipe: Nigella's incredibly easy chocolate fruitcake

Directions
1 Preheat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2 and prepare a 20cm x 9cm deep, round, loose-bottomed cake tin by lining the bottom and sides with a double layer of baking parchment, as for the Traditional Christmas Cake on p.172 (though I find that if you use one layer of that tough, reusable silicone baking parchment, my beloved Bake-O-Glide, it does the job well enough, and as the cake is so dark, you don't see if it catches a little).

2 Put the fruits, butter, sugar, honey, Tia Maria, orange juice and zests, spice and cocoa powder into a large, wide saucepan and gently bring to the boil, stirring as the butter melts.

3 Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to stand for 30 minutes.

4 When the 30 minutes are up -- it will have cooled a little, but you can leave it for longer if you want -- add the beaten eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula to combine.

5 Pour the fruit cake mixture into the prepared cake tin. Place in the oven and bake for 13/4--2 hours, by which time the top of the cake should be firm but will have a shiny, sticky look. If you insert a cake tester or skewer into it, the cake will still be a little gooey in the middle.

6 Put the cake, still in its tin, on a wire cooling rack -- it will hold its heat and take a while to cool; once cool, take it out of the tin and, if you don't want to eat it immediately (like any fruit cake it has a long life), wrap it in baking parchment or greaseproof paper then in foil and store in a cake or other airtight tin.

7 To decorate, though this is optional, place the chocolate-covered coffee beans in the centre of the cake and arrange the gold stars around the perimeter of the top. Then sprinkle some gold mini-balls over the whole cake, and the edible glitter over the top, not minding that you will be a-glitter yourself for a while.

Makes at least 10 generous slices

MAKE AHEAD TIP:
Make the cake up to 2 weeks ahead and wrap in a double layer of greaseproof paper and then a layer of foil. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. Decorate when needed.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:
Make the cake and wrap as above. Freeze for up to 3 months. To thaw, unwrap the cake and thaw overnight at room temperature. Re-wrap and store as above until needed.

From Nigella Christmas. Published by Random House Canada.  Copyright © 2008 by Nigella Lawson. All rights reserved.  Reprinted by permission of Random House Canada.

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