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Jenny Setchell

NO-EGG CHRISTMAS CAKE
I don't care for rich cakes as a rule. However, a friend won me over by recommending this as being too easy. It is.
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Christmas cake with green ginger wine, English breakfast tea, chocolate, and ginger. But NO eggs! Just brilliant.
INGREDIENTS
2½ cups golden sultanas
1 cup raisins
1 cup dried apricots, chopped
¾ cup chopped crystallised ginger (150gm pkt)
1 cup mixed peel (150gm pkt)
1 cup green ginger wine
1 cup strong English breakfast tea
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups self-raising flour (or add 1 tsp baking powder)
200gm dark chocolate (70+), chopped - finely
METHOD
  1. The day before you want to make the cake, put all dried fruit in a large bowl. Add the green ginger wine and tea. Stir well, cover tightly and leave in a cool place overnight or at least 8 hours.
  2. Heat fan oven to 160˚C. Line the base and sides of a 18cm square baking tin with 2 layers of baking paper. 
  3. Stir soaked fruit, then sift in flour and spices. Add chocolate and stir gently until combined.
  4. Scrape into prepared tin and bake for 65-75 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the tin.
  5. When completely cold, wrap well in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight container.  VERY rich! (and fattening)
"A joyful romp through the triumphs, mishaps, and madness of organ life"
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Jenny Setchell
Jenny Setchell spends her life photographing pipe organs, publishing books, and pretending she can cook better than open a can. A Kiwi by birth and habit, she’s happiest when a recipe is simple, a view is beautiful, or an organ is behaving. Her no-egg Christmas cake ticks at least one of those boxes.

She vows to complete her very-nearly-done organ performance degree one day when she is not trailing around Europe with husband Martin or trailing around after Dudley the tuxedo cat, whose only contribution to the household is fur. 

Online shops selling gifts for organists keep her linked in fond embrace with misbehaving computers most of the time, but she has been known to sleep.
Websites and Shops:
Blurb Bookshop
A couple of the available items in my Blurb profile:   
  • "My Ideal Organ", a notebook for having handy in the organ loft;
  • Inside Stories - the definitive organist's treasury;
  • "Not Just Postcards: A Kiwi's View of New Zealand" - a layflat, glossy coffee-table photo book of New Zealand
Inside Stories - a real treasury of beauty and info - everything you wanted to know​
A useful notebook for the busy organist, with pictures of organs opposite the grid-line blank pages​
New Zealand’s beauty and quirks, seen through a Kiwi’s eyes
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