Dan Lepard's Dundee cake bakealong

Dundee cake? Done! Check out the amazing results from around the world in pictorial form in our gallery
Dundee cake
Dundee cake Photograph: Dan Lepard

11.28am: Join me from 3pm today where, for our debut live bakealong, I'll be making Dundee cake. As you can see from the picture, it's fairly packed with fruit but set in a light golden crumb. So even if you usually have a dark fruitcake at Christmas, this Dundee will be a good alternative.

If you want to start weighing everything up, here are the measurements for the ingredients:

175g unsalted butter, softened, or dairy-free margarine
150g caster sugar, plus extra for the top
Finely grated zest of an orange
250g plain flour or gluten-free flour mix
3 large eggs, or egg replacer
100g marmalade or apricot preserve
100g ground almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts
375g mixed dried fruit - be creative if you like
200g glacé peel or cherries - less if you prefer
1 tsp baking powder
100g blanched almonds for the top

The tools you'll need: baking paper, a 20cm round or 18cm square deep cake tin, aluminium foil, a mixing bowl, a wooden spoon and a strong arm (or an electric mixer), scales, a little milk. And, of course, an oven.

Special diet shopping extras:

Vegan/Eggfree: Use an egg replacer or try this: if you can, get some gluten-free white flour (Dove's Farm in the UK do a good one). The reason is that these gluten-free flour mixes use tapioca and rice starch, which is brilliant for faking the effect of egg white in a fruit cake recipe like this, or in a brownie or cookie dough. To replace the richness of the egg yolk either soak in boiling water and puree to a very think paste some dried apricots or peaches, and add two teaspoons of the paste for every missing egg yolk. If you don't have that then just add a few tsp of vanilla extract. Adding a tablespoon of soya flour or finely ground golden linseed helps too.

Dairy-free: Just replace the butter with a baking-suitable vegetable margarine (check the packaging)

Gluten-free: Gluten-free plain flour will be good. If you have it, a scant tablespoon of psyllium husk powder plus 3 tbsp water or milk will stop the cake crumbling too quickly.

If you're out and about getting your ingredients and have any questions, please post them below and I'll see you at 3pm on Sunday.

What I need from you (ahhh, the catch….):

1. If you can, take pictures, upload them to one of those free picture hosting sites like flickr - very easy to do - then post a link so we can all see them. Pictures while you work, of you, your kitchen, I'll do the same so we're playing fair. We'll make a big fuss over your pictures, we're like that at wordofmouth.
2. Register here on the guardian.co.uk site, just by clicking the 'register' link right at the top of this page. Do it today, so all you'll need to do tomorrow is log on and ask me (or one of the talented users that will be prowling the site) a question, or let me know where you're at, and we can help each other as we bake.
3. Stay calm and relaxed. We're going to have the best time, ok?

Line a cake tin for baking

11.59am: To save us a bit of time ahead of the magic hour (3pm GMT), line the cake tin first as it saves mucking about later. Cut three strips of baking paper to cover the sides of a 20cm round (or 18cm square) deep cake tin, to insulate the cake from the heat, then cut three discs of paper to cover the base as well. Remember, if you're using non-stick baking paper, that you can reuse it. This is the way I do it, but if you have your own method, then go for it.

2.24pm: We'll be starting in about 30 minutes, but I'll give you late-starters time to catch up as we go along. My partner David will be looking after the text and pictures while I'm rushing around in the kitchen and responding to your comments and questions. If you have any general Christmas baking questions, hold onto them until this cake is in the oven, and then we can have a jolly good chat.

The good thing about this sort of cake is that it can sit waiting at most of the stages without coming to any harm. I'll be making a gluten + egg free version (for a vegan version, just use a dairy-free margarine) as well as a regular one so we can compare the two. I'll also dig out my 18-month old Dundee cake to see how it has lasted.

I think I've covered all the likely substitutions, but if you need to make lots of them, it will start to move away from the intended recipe. But you knew that. There are times when a bowl of fresh fruit might be the best dessert to suit a particular diet.

3.03pm: Here we go. Welcome, everyone, it's a really great feeling to be baking with so many enthusiastic people from so many different places!

To start, place the softened butter and the sugar in a bowl, and beat it like crazy until it is light in colour and texture, and almost looks whipped. This is easier to do with an electric mixer, harder with a wooden spoon, but the final result is almost the same.


3.04pm: If you're going egg-free, add 6 tsp of the dried apricot puree I mentioned (or extra marmalade) and beat that in.


3.04pm: If your butter is cold then chop it up and heat it in the microwave or a saucepan until about a third melts, then scrape it into a large mixing bowl and beat it like crazy with the sugar until smooth, light and a bit fluffy in texture.

Webster has a well-developed interest in marmalade. Photograph: Dan Lepard

3.04pm: We have been joined in the kitchen....


3.07pm: Add the orange zest and a third of the flour (about 75g, but you needn't measure it) and beat again until smooth. I stir everything together first before beating it, to stop flour flying out of the bowl.


3.16pm: Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until each is smoothly mixed through (or for an egg-free version beat in 75ml cold water) then beat in the marmalade (or preserve).


3.30pm: …then beat in the ground almonds. Switch the oven on now if yours takes a while to heat up: 170°C/fan 150°C/335°F/gas 3.


3.38pm: Add the remaining flour and the baking powder, beat this through...


3.39pm: ...then add the dried fruit and peel and stir well. If you're using gluten-free flour, stir in 25ml water to soften the mixture.

3.42pm: Make sure your oven is on now, just to repeat the temperatures, it should be 170°C/fan 150°C/335°F/gas 3.


3.44pm: Hey!


3.46pm: And spoon the mixture into the tin


3.48pm: ...smooth the top of the mixture in the tin. No blanched almonds yet!


3.50pm: ...and scrunch a sheet of foil over the top of the tin to keep the steam in. Place the cake in the oven so it sits roughly in the middle, then bake for 45 minutes. At that point, about a third of the way through the total baking time, we're going to add the blanched almonds. That's the exciting bit.


3.52pm: So while the cake bakes, cover the almonds with boiling water and leave for 10-15 minutes, then drain and dry lightly on a cloth. This will stop them turning brown too quickly. Here, the almonds have been blanched, left to swell, then drained, and are ready for the cake top.

4.28pm: Just to keep you all ahead of the game, hopefully your almonds will be blanched, drained and patted dry by now. I'll try to post some helpful hints - for example, if you're baking your cake in a larger tin (or that notorious bundt tin, iitu), you may need to reduce the total baking time, but in all cases, give it 45 minutes before you put the almonds on the top.

4.32pm: More photos will be added as and when they become available, but as a curtain raiser on the next steps....

After 45 minutes baking, you can carefully remove the cake from the oven, remove the foil 'lid' and very carefully press the almonds (flattish side upwards) onto the top of the cake in circles, starting nearest the centre.

4.34pm: You'll then need to return the cake to the oven, reduce the heat to 150°C/fan 130°C/300°F/gas 2 and bake a further 60 - 90 minutes.


4.37pm: So here we go, arranging the almonds by gently pressing them, flatter side upwards, onto the surface of the cake, in circles. Start near the centre.


4.41pm: Once you've arranged your almonds, and remembered to lower your oven temperature to 150°C/fan 130°C/300°F/gas 2, return the cake to the oven and bake for a further further 60 - 90 minutes (sometimes longer, depending on your oven).

4.43pm: This is the perfect time to do some clearing up, or as David reminds me, to fetch your lovely assistant a decent cup of tea!

5.03pm: You should have plenty of time yet, but make sure you have a wooden or metal skewer to hand, to test that the cake is almost baked, and a little milk (or water) and caster sugar, along with a pastry brush.


5.42pm: You now need to test your cake using a wooden or metal skewer. Most cake recipes tell you to look for the skewer coming out clean, but you want your Dundee cake to be just slightly undercooked at this stage, so when you carefully slide your skewer in through the top crust, you want it to come out with just a few crumbs sticking to it.


5.43pm: Mix a tablespoon of milk (or water if dairy-free) with a tablespoon of caster sugar until almost dissolved, remove the cake from the oven, brush this over the top and bake the cake for another 10-15 minutes to set the glaze. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.


6.14pm: Not sure how to embed the sound of trumpets, so I'll just say... here it is! What an amazing afternoon it's been for me, baking with so many people, literally all around the world!

I hope your Dundee cake turns out just as well, though I'd suggest using a wire rack to cool it on, still in the tin, rather than the keyboard of a laptop!

It's been an absolute pleasure and I'll be around for another hour or so, chatting and answering any more questions you might have. Let's do this again some time!

6.24pm: Before I go I must give a big, big thanks to David, who's been manning the techie side here and making sure that all the pictures uploaded, and the tricky stuff ran smoothly. And to Susan, whose bright idea it was to ask me to do a bakealong and who made it happen, just like that. And to Paul, who made sure David and I were up to speed on how to make this event happen without any page errors.

And, of course, to all of you. How extraordinary. In the true meaning of the word.



Monday 12.57pm: Above, clockwise from left, the 18 month old cake, the gluten and egg free cake, and the straight-up version of the recipe.

The day after: Some of you have already tucked into your cake, but I thought I'd wait until this morning. All three tasted great, but in different ways.

The 18 month old cake: This one was stored on top of a bookcase wrapped in foil for most of the year before being shunted to the top of a kitchen cupboard. The verdict? Really good, with a soft and only slightly dry edge to the texture. Which helped me realise that it's not actually moisture that makes a cake seem "moist" but the interaction between the sugar and the starch as the cake bakes and the effect this has. In supermarkets, cakes are often loaded with glucose and this does a similar thing: gives the texture a chewy softness with little moisture, thereby delaying the chance of mould forming.

The gluten-free, egg-free cake: the softest and best-textured crumb to my mind. Marred only by a slight graininess from the cornstarch. To me, it looks like there was less sinking of the cherries, and that might be caused by the corn/rice flour mix setting at a lower temperature during baking and keeping the fruit afloat.

The straight-up version: Lovely, the light crumb had a texture somehow reminiscent of nougat, if you know what I mean, and quite an oomph of orange and fruit. Will be tucking into this one through the week. Might even need to bake another.