When do you eat Xmas cake?

[almostenglish]

This probably sounds stupid but humour me, I'm "foreign".

Do you eat Xmas cake on Xmas day or just during the Xmas period when you have visitors for example?

If you eat it on the day, is that what you eat after the Xmas lunch or do you have a separate "pudding"/dessert for that?

#confused

Personally I hate Christmas cake! BUT...

In my family, Christmas pudding is traditionally eaten as Christmas Day dessert.

Christmas cake is normally made by relatives and given as a kind of gift around Christmas time and eaten 'as and when' over the weeks around Christmas.

No idea if that's how everyone else does it!

Christmas pudding - traditional dessert after the main meal.

Christmas cake - Centrepiece of a christmas tea or supper - growing up that was always anytime from 6pm onwards including cold cuts, salad, bread and butter, sausage rolls etc. And jelly, trifle, ice cream, mince pies.

The cake would sit untouched until Granny took pity on it and cut a slice, after which we would all take a (very) small slice and try to hide it under the nice food. Nobody really liked christmas cake in our house.

We don't have it nowadays.

In my family, Christmas cake is eaten in December but not necessarily Christmas day. Christmas pudding is the dessert on Christmas day.

I love it, but I know lots of people who don't like it much. DH's family rarely have it.

If you want to offer something to guests, mince pies are probably a safer choice!

When it's in the form of cheesecake.

I'm foreign too, but our Christmas is more English than anything these days.

OH is English and assures me that Christmas cake is eaten from xmas day evening (way after xmas dinner, almost as a dessert for the cheese - because the weird English have dessert and then cheese ) and then again on Boxing Day and basically throughout January.

Ok...

So I made Xmas cake because frankly I don't see a massive difference between the pudding and the cake, it's less hassle to make Xmas cake and my seven year old loves that kind of heavy fruit cake - he adores mince pies!

So we're not going to have Xmas pudding after the Xmas lunch. From what I understood it would make more sense (I know that really who cares but I just want to know) to have a dessert after the main roast, (say a cheesecake) and then Xmas cake can be eaten whenever we feel like it/have digested/have visitors... right?

Also, how long does the thing keep??

The difference is that the pudding is eaten hot, usually brought to the table flaming as you traditionally cover in cognac or rum or whisky and light it!

Then you have it with cream, custard, ice cream or brandy butter. The tradition also is that you hide some coins in the pudding (either in one of the slices or when you make it as a raw mix) and the lucky people get the coins.

It's really the dessert that follows the Christmas lunch.,

A Christmas cake is part of "high tea". So in the afternoon early evening after your turkey sandwiches, sausage rolls etc you have a slice of cake. It's cold and usually covered in a layer of marzipan and icing and some festive decoration. Or can be fruit and nut topped.

Because you "feed"'the cake regularly with alcohol up to the day you ice it (I usually ice it a few days before Crimbo) it is saturated with alcohol and won't go off if kept air tight.

Usually it's sliced on the night of Christmas but often people give a slice to Father Christmas on the 24th. I usually keep mine in a cake stand and then offer for the rest of the season.

You can actually keep a cake for a whole year!!! I made two last year, fed them well and have one left for this year!

But to be honest you'd never offer a slice of cake after lunch traditionally. Only pudding.

Me....I'll take a mince pie any time.

I'm eating them for breakfast now

Christmas cake is a massive tradition in our family. Always made to the same recipe in early November and fed with copious quantities of brandy Marzipan goes on about 5 days before Christmas and the cake is always iced (has to be home made Royal Icing) whilst listening tiCarols from Kings on Christmas Eve.

As a consequence, there is NO WAY it can (or should be) eaten before Christmas Day. As others have said, usually for high tea. Sometimes we're too stuffed and don't cut it until Boxing Day though!

Proper fruit cake keeps for months. It was effectively a way of preserving fruit in times past. As above, I make mine in November and it usually takes us until the end of Jan (a big cake, only 2 of us eating it) to finish. I always store in a proper airtight cake box.

Pudding should be eaten warm, as it's normally got lots of suet in it which isn't particularly nice cold. I always make both pudding and cake, and the cake lives in a big cake tin until DH has scoffed it all, which is normally around Easter.

Agree that it is cut on Christmas day night but it must be eaten with a slice of cheese.

Christmas cake is for late in the evening when you are stuffed full of roast and pudding and cheese, then somebody goes to make a cup of tea and somebody else says 'oo I could probably manage a slice of that cake now'.

If you aren't having Christmas pudding for pudding then you MUST have triffle.

In our family, nice little slices are presented on Christmas Day at around 7pm, but no one ever eats them...

Luckily Christmas cake keeps for weeks, months even if stored airtight. So we normally feel like it during a cold spell in February.

Finally finished off last year's christmas cake 3 weeks ago

Was only kept in it's box it came in, in the breadbin.

Am about to buy this years

No to both trifle and Christmas pudding here, I hate both. We tend to have a small pudding for my parents and DH, the rest of us just have ice cream. We like Christmas cake and as we don't eat till around 2.30 in Christmas Day we don't have another meal, just nibble on cake and mince pies.

Christmas pudding after the main Christmas meal (traditionally lunch but in our family we often have it in the evenings now). Christmas cake at Christmas evening tea - so eaten late in the evening and consisting of cold meats from lunch, bread, salad, and the aforesaid cake.

Hardly ever until at least Boxing Day. We don't have our Christmas dinner until around 5 so everyone is too stuffed on the day.

We're having it for Christmas lunch pudding this year.

Most of my guests don't like mince pies, only a couple like christmas pudding but everyone likes christmas cake so we'll have that and a yule log (for the DC who don't like Christmas cake)

No idea what the tradition is