Mini Christmas Cakes

Individual fruit cakes for Christmas – perfect for gifting or the Christmas table.

Jump to Recipe

or scroll for handy tips and a little nostalgia.

These mini Christmas Cakes are perfect to serve on Christmas Day.

They’re also a great way to spread some festive cheer – bake them up and give as a small Christmas-themed gift.

Packed with mixed fruit, spices, syrup and cocoa, these little Christmas cakes are sure to make your festive season special.

With glaze icing and silver cachous, they really do capture the wonder and beauty of the festive season.

Mini Christmas Cakes: ingredients from an old-fashioned boiled fruit cake recipe

This recipe is from the pages of Nana Ling’s handwritten recipe book.

It’s a boiled fruit cake, and here’s what you’ll need to add to your shopping list:

• mixed fruit and glace cherries
• brown sugar
• cocoa
• bicarb soda
• salt
• allspice and nutmeg
• butter
• golden syrup
• eggs
• jam
• SR flour
• icing sugar
• Amaretto (or another flavouring or essence).

Tips for making Mini Christmas Cakes

You do need to allow the boiled mixture to cool when making these cakes, so allow time for the cooling to take place.

You can make them up about 2 months in advance, however make sure you store the cake in the fridge.

You should also leave the glazing step until closer to serving time.

Use some contrasting colours when serving these or packaging as a gift.

I’ve used NSW Christmas Bush here (which isn’t edible), however some brightly coloured ribbons would also work well.

If you’d like to use this recipe to make one cake, simply change the cooking time to 2 hours.

If you’d like to explore the rest of the Cooking with Nana Ling Christmas recipe collection, head over here.

Nana Ling’s Mini Christmas Cakes recipe

Keep scrolling for the tested and tweaked version.

Mini Christmas Cakes

Individual fruit cakes for Christmas – perfect for gifting or the Christmas table.

5 from 4 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Australian

Keyword: mini christmas cakes, mini fruit cakes

Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Decorating: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 cakes

Calories: 321.72kcal

Ingredients

Mini Cakes

• 375 grams mixed fruit
• 60 grams glace cherries (halved)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch allspice
• 1 pinch nutmeg
• 1 cup water
• 30 grams butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon jam (strawberry, raspberry or your favourite jam)
• 2 cups SR flour

Glaze

• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon Amaretto
• 3-4 tablespoons boiling water

Instructions

Mini Cakes

• Place fruit, glace cherries, brown sugar, cocoa, bicarb soda, salt, allspice, nutmeg and water in a saucepan.
• Bring to the boil, stirring, and boil (covered) for 3 minutes.
• Take from heat and add chopped butter and golden syrup. Stir to combine.
• Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
• When cool, add eggs, jam and SR flour. Stir well.
• Line muffin pans with paper (I use the pre-shaped store-bought muffin papers). Add mixture to pans (makes 12).
• Bake in oven at 175 degrees celsius (fan-forced) for 25-30 minutes.
• When you take cakes from the oven, brush the tops with whisky and wrap in foil to cool.
• Allow cakes to cool completely before adding glaze.

Glaze

• Remove cakes from paper cases and level tops of cakes. Turn upside down before icing.
• Mix all ingredients together. Use enough water to ensure a runny but creamy texture (you want glaze to spread and cover cakes but don’t want it so runny that it doesn’t stick to the cakes). If you don’t have (or like) Amaretto, use another flavouring or simply substitute boiling water.
• Put cakes on a cooling rack with a tray underneath. Pour glaze over cakes and scoop up the run-off in the tray to re-use (making sure all cakes are completely coated in the glaze).
• Sprinkle silver cachous and crystal sprinkles on top of each cake.

Notes

You must allow the boiled mixture to cool when making these cakes, so allow time for the cooling to take place.

You can make them up about 2 months in advance, however make sure you store the cake in the fridge.

You should also leave the glazing step until closer to serving time.

Nutrition

Calories: 321.72kcal | Carbohydrates: 70.88g | Protein: 3.32g | Fat: 3.03g | Saturated Fat: 1.59g | Cholesterol: 32.66mg | Sodium: 85.45mg | Potassium: 78.51mg | Fiber: 1.16g | Sugar: 51.3g | Vitamin A: 196.45IU | Vitamin C: 0.83mg | Calcium: 20.21mg | Iron: 1.33mg