Christmas Cake for Less People

Our answer

Nigella's Christmas cakes are most often baked in a 20cm (8-inch) round springform tin and we have not converted them for loaf tins as many loaf tins have a capacity that is slightly larger than the round tin, so the cake itself will still be on the large side. Nigella does have a slightly smaller cake, which is the 18cm (7-inch) round Traditional Christmas Cake that can be found in her book Christmas.

We would suggest perhaps trying Christmas cakes in cupcake form. Nigella has a recipe for Jewelled Cupcakes in Feast and these are based on the Easy-Action Christmas Cake recipe (from Feast and on the Nigella website). The recipe makes 18-24 cupcakes, depending on how large you make them, and could be halved, in which case use an egg yolk instead of half an egg. Nigella tops the cakes with a mixture of nuts and candied fruits but you could cover them instead with thin discs of marzipan and then the icing and decorations of your choice. Half of this recipe will also make a small 15cm (6-inch) round cake which takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to bake.