The night before Christmas cake

Tis the night before Christmas and you haven't made a cake? Just follow this recipe, for everyone's sake!

Ingredients (serves 8)
* 175g unsalted butter, softened
* 225g brown sugar
* 275g self-raising flour
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 175ml buttermilk
* 2 eggs
* Grated rind of 1 lemon
* Grated rind of 1 orange
* 225g fruit mince
* 2 tbs brandy
Florentine topping
* 50g hazelnuts
* 50g blanched almonds
* 85g brazil nuts
* 140g red glace cherries
* 100g golden syrup
Icing
* 2/3 cup (100g) icing sugar
* 2 tsp lemon juice


Method
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line base of a 20cm springform cake pan. Beat butter and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy, sift flour and baking powder and stir into butter mixture with buttermilk and eggs. Stir in rinds with fruit mince and brandy. Spoon into pan and bake for 1 hour.
2. Meanwhile, for florentine topping, place nuts, cherries and golden syrup in a saucepan and warm over a medium heat. When cake has cooked for 1 hour, remove from oven and spread topping over. Return for a further 15-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
3. For the icing, mix together sugar and lemon juice, place in a piping bag with a small nozzle and drizzle over cake. Decorate with ribbon, if desired.

Source
delicious. - Page 108
Recipe by Valli Little