Christmas Cake Club - Anyone who wants to join.......

[UCM]

I am going to buy the fruit to soak this weekend (needs to be in sherry for a week) so I thought I would pass my recipe on to anyone who wants it. But anyone who is making their own cake please feel free to pass on tips or your own recipe, like what alternative alcohol do you use??

6oz sultanas
6oz raisins
4oz currants
4oz glacecherries
3oz mixed peel
1/4 pint sherry
6oz butter
6oz soft brown sugar
4 eggs
4oz SR flour
4oz plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1oz ground almonds

Mix together all fruit. pour sherry over and leave to soak for 1 week, covered. Stir frequently until required.

Grease & line a 7 - 8 inch cake tin

Method

Cream butter & sugar until soft & fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold in flour, salt & ground almonds. Drain off any liquid from the fruit and mix fruit into mixture stirring until well blended. Put into prepared tin, smooth top and bake just below middle of oven for 1 hour on gas mark 3. Then cover with foil and reduce oven to gas mark 2 and cook for a further 1.5 hours until firm to touch. Leave to stand in tin until nearly cold. remove from tin, prick well and pour over liquid from dried fruit. Wrap in foil or greaseproof paper and leave to mature until a few days before christmas, then marzipan & ice.

Tips: I don't like almonds so didn't use em. I also put some chocolate liqueur in with the sherry. also I don't like marzipan so didn't ice, but did make one for a relative which I did ice and it was easy. I have never made a christmas cake before and I have to say this recipe works like a dream.

I thought we could have an 'add booze to Christmas Cake night, where you drip some more booze in once a week and drink some as well

You can feed your cake when ever you want to. I am only stopping and fed a bit sparingly cos I am up the duff and didn't want too much heartburn. In fact the more you feed it the nicer it will taste.

So, when's the best time to ice your cake - complete novice here - never made a christmas cake or iced one in my life!!

When am i supposed to put the marzipan on?

Glad someone has bumped the thread - I need reminding to feed the thing!

I've been feeding it often enough, i'm just not sure when to put the marzipan, or the icing on!

I need to know about icing it as well. Can not wait to try it.
h

How are all the cakes. Christmas Eve morning here already and I have just taken it out to look at it. Looking very yummy. Will be decorating it today, not icing it as noone really likes the icing in my family. We will probably partake in our first piece tonight.

Thank you very much UCM for the recipe and Merry Christmas to all the cake bakers

DH makes ours. It's bloody lovely However, he likes it more than me, which is why he makes it

Mine looks ace (proud).

Dunno what it tastes like tho!

i marxipanned and iced it yesterday. it does not look perfect but certainly good enough to impress as a first effort. I had to trim the top so finally got to taste it - twas lovely

merry christmas one and all

Am i too late to join the club now?

How were the cakes?

We don't usually cut ours until New Year's Eve, as we go to the ILs between Xmas and NY and eat theirs'.

[slight preen] I'm very pleased with mine this year [buffs fingernails]. Because I made it veyr late I did the simmering in tea trick, and then I fed it with whisky (because that was all we had, other than liqueuers, which are too sweet). And it is stonking! [wihs there was a smug icon, will have to do ]

What about everyone else?

I made my first ever Christmas cake this year and it was yummy! I followed Delia's tip of soaking the fruit in brandy overnight and I think that helped, then I fed it with whisky for 2 weeks. Unfortunately I had to use ready-made marzipan (from Tesco) and icing as I'm pregnant and can't eat raw egg. The marzipan was OK but the icing was a bit rubbery. I would love to make more cakes next year but don't think I'll have the time! Could I make next year's cake now? 11 months' feeding with alcohol should help it keep longer, shouldn't it?

okay, the cake looked good, tastes good, but is only half finished & i'm meant to be on a diet!
oh well, shall just have to force feed myself!

UCM you are a genius!!! I have been feted and admired by grandmothers and great-grandmothers for my cake this year.

Thanks to you I had it brewing in a bottle of brandy for 3 whole months. I had granddads sniffing my somewhat-fermenting 3 month old brandy fruit mix and deeming it delicious even before I baked it and the recipe seems to have won everybody over, despite the fact that I cooked the second cake (I made enough mix for 2) on New Years Eve in a strange oven that was also opened and filled with party pies and cheesy vegemite rolls by heathens who don't understand cake baking etiquette.

Your cake recipe and 3-month soaking is going in my family recipe book and is going to be handed down for generations. I thank you.

Excellent, the reason I liked this recipe is because it's so easy, there isn't too much faffing around with lots of ingredients (which in most cakes you can't taste cos of the booze anyway)

It's already in my family recipe book.

Big thanks to my next door neighbours mother who got it from a recipe book off the milkman about 1000 years ago

I used Delia, but modified it - I didn't have ther patience to prepare cherries, so missed them out and used lots of different nuts, roughly chopped, instead.

I used to dolots of cake-dfecorating,and, framkly, home-made matrzipan isn't worth the effort unless you're trying to avoid an allergen. And if you make Royal Icing with dried egg-white you can avoid the raw-egg issue entirely.

If you bake the cake now, don't remove the baking paper from it, but wrap snuggly (as soon as it is cool) it in another layer of clean greasproof paper and a couple of layers of foil it will easily keep for a year. You could freeze it, if you're not confident, or don't have a cool, dark place for it.

ps, make sure to use only butter - it enhances the keeping qualities, whereas marge ot white 'baking fat' go off more easily in acake.

\link{http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/the-classic-christmas-cake,1293,RC.html\ is this the delia cake people talked about...so, it is good?
btw...the fruit, it won't all sink to the bottom?
I had this recently happening to my teabread, all teh fruit wet at the bottom and all the cake ontop kinda dry and tasteless...never had that happening before...but...can't explain why it happened...any ideas how you can make sure fruit doesn't sink?

Also, any good websites for the decoration? I owuld liek something easy, but also kinda unusual

oops
is this the delia cake

OK, so next daft question, when should we marzipan/ice the thing?

bump

Marzipan it at least a week before you want to ice it, as that lets the oils in the marzipan dry out.

I regularly forget about it and then end up icing a cake on Christmas Eve, but it's only ever a (very) rough snow scene by that stage!

Mind you, if you don't mind the taste of fondanty icing like on shopbought cakes(can't bear it meself) then the 'ready to roll' regalice in boxes is a no-brainer and can be done on the day itself if necessary. Looks v. smart too (although like I said, the taste/texture, for me, is not wonderful)

If you wanted to properly royal-ice a cake and do fancy sugarcraft icing on top, then do it about a week before you want to eat it. It takes 24 hours to make the icing for the flat surface (you can slop it on straight away but I find resting it overnight makes it much smoother) and at least another 24 for it to dry, then another 24 to apply whatever piping you're planning on... which is why I tend to go for a snow scene these days!

HTH

PS whoever was asking back in Jan about fruit sinking - toss it in some of the recipe flour beforehand - top tip from my Domestic Science teacher some 30 years ago!

Thanks lovecat, much appreciated