Jewelled Christmas Cake

Our answer

We suspect that the Christmas cake you are referring to is Nigella's Easy-Action Christmas Cake which appears in Feast (p92). This cake includes sweetened chestnut puree as well as more traditional ingredients and the fruits, nuts, sugar and butter are put in a saucepan and heated together, before bring left to stand and steep for a short period of time. Once the cake has been baked Nigella suggests decorating the cake with glazed (glace) fruits and brushing over a little thinned apricot jam. Nigella also makes this cake mixture into smaller Jewelled Cupcakes by baking the same cake mixture in cupcake cases.

The other fruit-topped offering is Nigella's version of an Italian delicacy known as Certosino. It appears in Domestic Goddess (p255). However this is a fairly thin cake and is usually served in very small wedges so is different to the more traditional type of Christmas cake.