Nigella’s chocolate fruit Christmas cake?

[Paranormalbouquet]

Has anybody made this?

If so:

1. Is it good?

2 How far in advance could I make it?

1. Could anybody direct me to some idiots guide for wrapping the tin in brown paper?! (I’m awful at that sort of thing, can’t visualise at all!).

I like baking but hate decorating cakes, and this one looks like it’s meant to sink a little so perfect for me I think!

Yes! It's foul, don't!
It was very mortifying to see a table full of people gallantly chewing and using words like "interesting" and "different".
Made it the first year her Christmas book came out. Have made Delia's classic ever since.

Re the brown paper, just cut a long strip longer and higher than your tin, double thickness and tie it round with string. It doesn't have to be perfect.

It’s fine, but not a traditional Christmas cake.

Hmm, don’t think I’ll do it do!
Was happy it wasn’t a traditional cake- don’t like it, can’t ice them!

Any other suggestions? Need a dessert to feed 8 adults, which can be prepared in advance as am limited in time and cooking space on the day. My husband says no to tricks!

I never ice Christmas cakes. I do a fruit and nut topping. Basically just get hold of a variety of shelled nuts and dried or glacé fruit. Heat up a couple of tbs of apricot jam with spoon of water or brandy and paint top of cake with this. Then arrange fruit and nuts in a pleasing pattern and paint gently over the top again to glaze them.

An alternative even easier Christmas cake is to make a batch of rocky road/tiffin/chocolate fridge cake and put it to set in a pudding basin that you have lined with cling film. Let it set in fridge as usual and then turn out onto a plate. Dollop a couple of tbsof thick glace icing on top and let it drizzle down the edges and either stick a sprig of actual holly on the top or use bay leaves/glacé cherries or marzipan to make a fake one. (So it looks like a Christmas pud)

Rachel Allen has a lovely ginger cake which in theory keeps quite well for a few days.

We have that as our Christmas cake, attractively baked in a snowflake mould I got from the Lidl aisle of shame so I don't have to ice it.

I adore it! (But I love prunes and they do feature heavily). My DH who is more of a fruitcake traditionalist isn’t so keen. But prunes and chocolate are heaven to me. I’ve made it so many times I have a brown cardboard “collar” stored that I use every year.

I don't care what they say but chocolate and fruit don't go. Mind you it's only got 4 tablespoons of cocoa in a big cake like that, so neither here nor there.

I didn't like this as much as a normal fruitcake but it's still quite fruitcakey if you don't like fruitcake at all.
I'd just make a different cake you do like (chocolate if that's what you prefer), ice with a simple butter icing (looks a bit like snow so Christmassy) and top with some bought Christmas cake toppers and edible glitter.

Make a pavlova... easy peasy, looks lovely with berries and chocolate drizzled over and hardly any faff.

Ooh pavlova is a fab idea. And if you want to make it extra Christmassy, make a ring shape and then scatter with raspberries, blue berries and few bay leaves to get the Christmas wreath look again. Did that last year when people came round and it looked (and tasted!) fab!

I have made her easy action Christmas cake from Feast this year, with a pack of pre soaked fruit from Waitrose. It looks good and smelled amazing. I had a quick peek at it earlier, I am struggling not to eat it and just make another.

I think the Yule Log is an under rated Christmas food. I buy mine from M&S but it’s just a roulade covered with a bit of ganache that’s had s fork run through it and a dusting of icing sugar ‘snow’ (that hides a multitude of sins).

Serve with ice cream or cream although I quite like a boozy flavoured ice cream or one with bits of stem ginger in it.

Thought about pavlova but DH doesn’t like it much, and have the same problem with making it pretty (very bad at decorating anything!). Ginger cake looks nice alright but not sure a loaf cake is right for Christmas Day dessert.

I made panettone last year and it didn’t go down too well. A chocolate fridge cake may be the way to go! I can do a nice baileys chocolate biscuit cake alright!

Yule Log would be good, or sticking with Nigella, the Girdlebuster pie, that's fab and very very easy.

Yes sorry I didn't like it either, it just tasted like a bad fruit cake to me. And I normally love nigella.

I love the fridge cake 'pudding' idea. A couple of other things that have gone down well here, stack of brownies decorated in icing sugar and gold stars with salted caramel sauce to pour and/or Christmas pudding ice cream which is basically letting some good vanilla soften a little, mix in either mixed fruit or chopped chrostmas pussing. Turn into a pudding dish and 're freeze till ready to serve. It's better out for 10 mins before hand. Warm chocolate sauce is welcome but not necessary

Christmas pudding even!

I made this one a couple of years ago, after years of making Delia's. It was delicious and doesn't need decorating if you don't want to. There are ideas and instructions though for decorating both simply and extravagantly on the Sainsbury's website if you do go for it...or just go naked!

Last year, I did the rocky road "Christmas Pudding" that Polyanthus mentions - used a BBC recipe (not a clue where to find it now, sorry) and poured cooling melted white chocolate over the top to get the "traditional custard" look. That went down VERY well. (Put at least 2 if not 3 layers of cling film to make it easier to lift out, and have plenty hanging over the edge for the same reason - I think I had it out of the fridge for a couple of hours and still needed to do a "dunk for 30 seconds in hot water" to release the pud from the bowl).

I also made a pavlova - I had made the meringue bases at home (for 2), whipped the cream on the morning before travelling from rented cottage to ILs house, and had berries to put on top. 3 minutes to assemble. With the last bit of meringue, when I was making the nests, I put in some green colouring and "drew" 2 Christmas tree shapes on greaseproof, and baked those to make something festive to go on top - it worked mostly - but I did have to put both on 1 pavolva to support each other, rather than 1 on each).

One other idea would be to assemble a bread and butter pudding (make it rich using dried fruit, and some sherry or other booze, maybe with pannettone as the "bread") - you can make that up the night before, and just put it into the oven after everything else is cooked to bake while you eat main course. DH sometimes makes this as a special dessert, but nearly always prepares it the day before to allow the custardy mix soak in well to the bread and it really does make it unctuous!

I make nigella' s chocolate fruit cake but I use Cointreau instead of tia Maria and decorate it candied orange. I like it!

If you like chocolate and Nigella, her chocolate fudge cake is easy peasy, keeps really well and is amazing. You could Christmas it up with some glitter and a snow of icing sugar.

I really love it and of course you can ice it, what a strange thing to say. I dislike nuts and candied peel so traditional Christmas cake is not at all my thing. It is dark and moist and not chocolatey in flavour, just rich.

We're having Nigella's Yule log (in Feast) - I always balls it up when rolling it but you slap so much buttercream on it doesn't matter - run a fork round it for lines, sprinkle a bit of icing sugar for snow, job done.

If we weren't having this, we'd be having Nigella's chocolate cherry trifle you may be sensing a theme here

If you do a pavlova, pomegranates are in season and would look great, like berries.

Oh sorry, should read more carefully! Thought somebody complained that Nigella cake was uniceable. (Backs away slowly)
You can make it a way in advance but freeze it rather than storing and feeding it.

I do like Nigella, will look at all of these. I had thought of bread and butter pudding but I’d really love to make something a few days in advance as have a huge menu planned and only one oven!

Might do a practice pavlova this weekend, I’m sure DD will be happy to help!

Bigbad I know most people can ice cakes but I’m sadly not one of them! I generally make drizzle cakes, cheese cakes or fridge cakes as my decorating skills are so poor! Glad to hear you liked it.