I’ll tell you a little secret that inspired me to come up with this Ginger and Lime Christmas Cake.  I can’t stand fruit cake, or marzipan too for that matter. The only part of a traditional Christmas Cake I ever liked was the rock hard royal icing which lacerated your palate and was oh so sweet.  Fondant icing is something you see more and more as a finishing touch to fruit cakes and it’s something I really like to work with because it is easy to roll out (even easier if you use ready rolled icing sheets) and it makes everything look really Christmassy like my Snowflake Cake or the incredibly easy Spiced Snowflake Cookies

This cake is a delicate Madeira sponge spiked with lime zest and ground ginger masquerading as a traditional iced cake.  It’s nice to have something slightly different as a teatime treat and you would definitely enjoy this with a cup of coffee on Christmas night when you want something sweet but not too heavy. The cake in the photos vanished very rapidly in work after photography was completed… which is the highest form of praise.

Ginger and Lime Christmas Cake

175g Butter,very soft

175g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs, at room temperature

250g Self Raising Flour

2 tsp Ground Ginger

Zest of 2 Limes

45ml Milk

Lime Buttercream Icing (see below)

1 sheet Ready Rolled Fondant Icing

Preheat your oven to 180c/Gas Mark 4.  Grease and line an 8-inch loose bottomed cake tin with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, together with a tablespoon of the flour each time (to stop the mixture from curdling).  Fold in the rest of the flour, ground ginger and lime zest.  Now add the milk slowly until the cake mix becomes a soft dropping consistency.

Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Turn out onto a cooling rack and let it go completely cold.  In the meantime, make some lime buttercream – this acts as the glue between the cake and the fondant icing.

Lime Buttercream Icing

140g Butter, very soft

250g Icing Sugar

Juice of 1 lime

Beat the three ingredients together until completely smooth. When the cake is cold, spread a thin layer of the buttercream over the cake and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Decoration time…

Unroll a sheet of fondant icing into a surface thinly dusted with icing sugar.  This stops the fondant sticking to your work surface.  Now lift it up, using a rolling pin to support it and smooth it over your cake.  Use your hands or a smoothing tool to work out any bumps or air bubbles and trim away any excess with a really sharp knife.  Adorn it with every bit of seasonal decoration you have.  You could even strategically place them to hide any less than perfect areas…

Babaduck started life in 2010 to show one friend (Mrs. T) what to make for dinner, step by step and it’s grown ever since. I love writing about all aspects of food and drink, including creating simple easy to follow recipes with lots of photos, restaurant and product reviews, lots of food news and as much travel as I can cram in. I’m a self-confessed Francophile and love almost everything about la belle France, especially the wine. The Hubs is my beloved other half who taste tests all the recipes on your behalf and keeps me on an even keel. So where did the name come from? The Hubs inspired the name – he calls me Baba & his friends call him The Duck. Simples.
See her blog @ https://www.babaduck.com/
Follow her on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/babaduck71