Searcys Princess Cake: Traditional Dundee Cake Recipe

It’s our 175th Anniversary year and to honour our heritage we took a look back through the archives and found ourselves inspired by the magnificent confectionery work of our founder, John Searcy.

Our most recent homage to Searcy’s work was the recreation of the five-tiered masterpiece originally made in 1896 royal wedding of Princess Maud, then the future Queen of Norway, to Prince Carl of Denmark.

Our Princess Cake is a traditional Dundee fruit cake covered with delicate marzipan and white and gold lattice work icing before topped with carefully crafted sugar work of flowers, fruits, cherubs and lions. The cake will he cake will travel across our restaurants throughout the summer and giving guests a chance to try a slice at venues including 116 Pall Mall, The Pump Room in Bath, Searcys at the Gherkin and St Pancras Brasserie.

Discover more about the Searcys Princess Cake here.

You can now make the Searcys Princess Cake at home! Don’t worry, no intricate sugar work required…

Our very talented pastry chef, Yvonne Graham has kindly shared her delicious Dundee fruit cake recipe so you can now make your own version of the Searcys Princess Cake.

Searcys Dundee Cake:

Serves 8 – 12

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 150g dark brown sugar
• 150g butter
• 50g flour (for coating the soaked fruit)
• 100g currants
• 100g glace cherries
• 100g raisins
• 100g sultanas
• 225g flour
• 75g ground almonds
• 500g marzipan
• 500g rolled out icing
• 200ml rum, brandy and sherry
• 60g apricot jam
• 20ml water

Method

1. Soak the fruit in the alcohol for about 2 months, this can be less but needs to be at least 1 week. The longer the better the flavour of our recipe
2. Cream the butter and sugar till fluffy, add the eggs slowly and then fold in the flour
3. Drain the soaked fruit and then dust/coat with the additional flour (50g) then add in the almonds.(the flour helps the fruit mix well in to the batter mix with out it falling down and to the bottom as well as stopped the cake having holes in the middle as the fruit shrinks and sinks
4. Mix the dusted fruit in to the cake batter mix and once mixed well place in to an 8” parchment paper lined cake tin..
5. Bake in an oven at 150°c for about one and a half hours (if it gets too brown cover with foil).
6. Remove from the oven once cooked and cool down, when completely cold mix the apricot jam with the water and bring to the boil then brush over the top of the cake.
7. Roll out the marzipan to the size required and place on top of the glazed fruit cake, brush with a little brandy.
8. Knead and roll out the icing to required size and cover the cake
9. Cut a big slice and enjoy…(p.s. it pairs perfectly with our new Searcys English Sparkling Wine