’TIS THE SEASON FOR FRUIT CAKE.

It’s Christmas. Permission to eat fruit cake every day for a month. Plus – my best fruit cake recipe. Plus – you can buy them at the social enterprise Two Good Cafe!

I grew up on a sheep farm in Victoria, and when people came for afternoon tea (that happens in the country), there had to be fruit cake. There just had to be, or it wasn’t afternoon tea.

There was a slice of it in my school lunch box, and sometimes the entire cake tin came along on a family picnic. Then when I moved to London in 2000 as Cookery Editor of The Times, I decided I had to get serious. I baked Dundee cakes, soaking the fruit in whisky, and using the traditional candied orange peel, no fancy stuff (Dundee was the centre of the Scottish marmalade industry). I went back through history, exploring regional specialties. I learnt from Eliza Acton, Marguerite Patten, Delia Smith, Mary Cadogan, Mary Berry, Sue Lawrence and Nigella. I took my fruit cake to Lord’s to taste-test it amongst cricket fans, because they know all about fruit cake. Finally, after much dedicated research, I decided my favourite fruit cake recipe was the traditional Irish boil-and-bake version, and have made it ever since.

Chockers with dried fruits and warm baking spices like cinnamon, it’s light and fruity, and doesn’t weigh you down. So now I’ve turned it into little cup cakes topped with royal (republican, actually) icing to give us all some semblance of portion control for the month of December.

The recipe is below, BUT buried in this newsletter like a sixpence lurking in a Christmas pudding, is some BREAKING NEWS.

My little boil-and-bake fruit cakes are the runaway pop-up guest stars at the Two Good Café in Darlinghurst, Sydney for the month of December!  So please drop in for a coffee and fill the boot with them.

YOU’D HAVE TO BE NUTTY NOT TO.

Yes, I am the #TwogooderChefoftheMonth (I do so love being a hashtag!)

And as guest chef at Two Good’s beautiful little café at Yirranma Place in Liverpool Street, I’ve designed a menu that you can partake in either in person at the café, or through Two Good’s catering programme, where you can scale it up to feed hundreds.

Chefs of the calibre of Darren Robertson, Matt Moran, Belinda Jeffreys and Martin Benn have all shared their recipes in previous months, so it’s bloody amazing company to be in.

It means that as of now, if you’re in Sydney, you can pop in Monday to Friday and grab a social enterprise (and great) Kua coffee and one of three dishes from me.

Up on the specials board is my festive toastie of Christmas ham smashed into sourdough with gruyere and Dijon and syrupy Italian mustard fruits, cooked in a sandwich press until knock-knock crisp, golden and melty.

Also available at the Café and for corporate catering, is a lovely wild rice and smoked turkey salad full of greens and grains and crunchy nuts and seeds. This one has a mix of brown rice and wild rice for flavour, roasted butternut for sweetness, smoked turkey and cranberries for Christmassiness, dill for freshness, and sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds and pistachios for crunch. Apple cider vinegar, orange juice, honey and mustard make a juicy dressing that brings it all together.

The kitchen will be baking my little boil-and-bake fruit cakes every day for both the café and catering menu (order a dozen!). They’re topped with snow-white icing and some candied orange peel for extra festive points.

BIG THANKS to Jen Shaw and Heather Cook and their mighty kitchen team at Two Good for scaling up my recipes and making it all happen; it’s very exciting.

So exciting that I’m going to take up residence in the café myself twice a week, so if you’re around, drop by and say hi.

Here’s the plan: I’ll be at the Two Good Co Cafe from 12 noon to 1pm December 1, Wednesday Dec 7, Friday Dec 9, Wednesday Dec 14, Thursday Dec 15, and Monday December 19. Love to see you if you can drop by.

Yirranma Place, restored by philanthropic organisation the Paul Ramsay Foundation is quite special; worth a visit regardless of the lure of fruit cake. Pass through the steel gates designed by Barkandi elder Badger Bates, so beautifully realised by artisan blacksmith Matt Mewburn, and check out the range of Two Goodies for sale in the little café just to the left.

Say g’day to Two Good’s fabulous barista and café supervisor Kenny Spain, and Karlee, one of the Work Work program’s participants, who is learning the craft from Kenny – this is Two Good’s work in action.

If you can’t make it – then bake it!   And jump online to Two Good and stock up on their nurturing self-care products, beautiful food products curated by Jen Shaw and some super-special Christmas crackers for the table that help spread the joy.

Two Good Co Café, Yirranma Place, 262 Liverpool St, Darlinghurst.

Mon-Fri 7am-3pm right up to 23rd December, re-opening in the new year on Jan 9.

LITTLE BOIL-AND-BAKE FRUIT CAKES

Makes 12

• 150 g butter, chopped

• 300 g sultanas

• 300 g currants

• 100 g cranberries

• 180 g soft brown sugar

• 1 tbsp golden syrup or maple syrup

• 250 ml water or strong breakfast tea

• 2 eggs, beaten

• 150 g plain flour

• 150 g self-raising flour

• 1 tsp mixed spice

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• Pinch of sea salt

• To serve: royal icing and mixed peel

In a saucepan, combine the butter, sultanas, currants, cranberries, brown sugar, golden syrup and water or tea.

Bring to the boil, stirring until butter has melted, then transfer to a large bowl to cool.

When cool, heat the oven to 180C.

Beat the eggs into the mixture one at a time with a wooden spoon.

Sift the two flours, mixed spice, cinnamon, bicarb soda and salt into the mixture, beating well.

Spoon into the greased and papered holes of a giant muffin tin.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a thin skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.  

Remove and cool for 10 mins before removing from the tin, and cool completely.

Ice and top with crystallised peel.

REPUBLICAN ICING

• 1 egg white

• 250 g icing sugar, sifted

• 2 tsp lemon juice

• Mixed peel, chopped

Whisk egg white until lightly foamy, add half the icing sugar and lemon juice, beating well. Gradually beat in the remaining icing sugar until smooth. Drop a teaspoonful of icing on top of each cake and spread into a round without covering the entire top. While still soft, arrange mixed peel on top.

# Your muffin tin holes might be bigger or smaller than mine. Don’t over-bake or the cake will be crumbly. If you do over-bake, then serve with butter, to hold it together.

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Thanks for reading! And thanks to Jo Rosenberg and Rob Caslick of Two Good for my guest-cheffery, and to Kenny Spain for Two Good photography; and the team at Cru Agency for getting the news out. And special thanks to Terry Durack for all the fruit cake he is going to buy throughout December, purely as a way of contributing to the good work done by Two Good every day and not just because he loves eating fruit cake.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.