Christmas cake doesn't need to mean an all-day project or a shopping list of ingredients that only show up once a year. Here are three versions, from simplest to most traditional.
1. No-bake date and nut cake
Blend a cup of pitted dates with a splash of warm water until it turns into a thick paste, then mix it through crushed digestive biscuits, chopped walnuts or almonds, and a spoon of cocoa powder. Press the mixture into a lined tin, chill it for two hours, and slice it cold. The dates do the sweetening and hold the mixture together, so there's no oven and no refined sugar in the recipe at all.
2. One-bowl fruit cake with dates instead of glacé cherries
Swap the usual glacé cherries in a standard fruit cake mix for chopped dates and dried apricots. Soak the fruit in warm tea or orange juice for an hour before folding it into the batter, this softens it and stops it sinking to the bottom of the tin while baking. Bake low and slow, around 150°C for an hour and a half, and check with a skewer before pulling it out.
3. Traditional rich fruit cake, aged the old way
For the version that keeps for weeks, soak raisins, sultanas, chopped dates and dried figs in brandy or orange juice overnight before mixing. Bake it slowly, wrap it in greaseproof paper once cooled, and let it sit in a tin for at least a week before cutting, the fruit and spice flavours deepen the longer it rests. This is the cake worth starting a few weeks ahead of the holiday rather than the night before.
Why dates work better than most people expect
Dates bring natural sweetness and moisture without the graininess dried cherries or candied peel can leave behind, and they hold their shape through a long bake better than most soft dried fruit. Medjool dates work best pitted and chopped for these recipes since they're large and easy to portion; Sayer or Mariami dates work well blended into the no-bake version. The Dates Products range and the Kedai Kurma selection both carry the varieties used above, sold by grade rather than a generic "pitted dates" bag.