Christmas cake other than fruit???

[AnSionnachGlic]

Just thinking of all lovely baking I will start next month. I usually make a Christmas cake in October and all my kids ( teenagers) help in some way. However I'm the only one who eats it ( and my mother) so I end up throwing most of it out in January. Is there any alternative to traditional fruit cake, that I can make in advance.....that will also fill house with lovely 'Christmas ' baking aromas? I don't want to miss out on baking a cake, as it's one of our traditions, but I hate the waste! Any suitable alternatives that my ( big) kids might like??

Madeira cake lasts for two weeks iced and is a favourite choice for decorators as it holds up under heavy icing, and you have a week to decorate and a week to eat. You can endlessly tweak the flavours of Madeira to anything you want. My cousin does a version with vanilla and cinnamon that’s lovely. If you want to ice it, scrape the middle of the tin towards the edges, until you can actually see the tin showing, when you put it in the oven and it should come out flat.

Another alternative cake is chocolate biscuit cake. I add a terrys orange, a and some crushed crunchies to my chocolate and make it with condensed milk instead of golden syrup. It lasts for ages in the fridge, I’m told, though it never has in my house.

I always dry slices of oranges studded with cloves to add to my garlands and wreaths, and I love the way the house smells when I make them (low oven for hours). I know it’s a cake thread, but just in case you’d like a non-baked cake like the chocolate biscuit one, you can still fill your house with a small of christmas.

I make Christmas cake in gold muffin cases. Wrapped with foil they last for ages, especially as they aren't cut, and they are easy to give away and share. Is that an option? I use Nigellas easy action Christmas cake from Feast (www.nigella.com/recipes/easy-action-christmas-cake), and to make it even more easy action. I buy a pack of pre soaked fruit from Waitrose.

You could also do some Christmas cake slices for yourself

www.womanandhome.com/recipes/christmas-cake-tray-bake-recipe/

Thank you so much for all your delicious sounding alternatives. Will definitely try some out. Also love the idea of drying out clove studded orange slices in oven thelegohooverer !

@thelegohooverer do you have a biscuit cake recipe? It sounds a bit like Dolli cake I had in NZ once which was immense but I never did find the recipe!

www.cooks.com/recipe/o218k81g/jamaican-spice-cake.html
Jamaican spice cake here ^

Converter - cups to grams:
www.allrecipes.com/article/cup-to-gram-conversions/

If it’s fruit cake rather than dried fruit they object to, the St Delia mincemeat smells amazing in a low oven. I make it with coconut oil (the refined kind) instead of suet.

Mary Berry does a great Tunis Cake recipe if you goggle it.

@BooSurprise I use equal grams of chocolate to ml of condensed milk and then guess the biscuits (some people like it more biscuity than others so I change that depending on who’ll be eating it. Sometimes I use all milk chocolate for a sweeter cake, and sometimes I put some dark chocolate in. Again depends who’s eating it. But I don’t use cooking chocolate - there’s no golden syrup to disguise the flavour so it needs good quality chocolate.

I play around with the biscuits - digestives are softer, rich tea a bit firmer. I like a mix of the two. I’ve used ginger biscuits before which got mixed reviews. Sometimes I throw in some Maltesers too.

The word toblerone disappeared from my last post which is ironic because it’s like my secret ingredient. The little chewy almonds pieces are yummy.

That’s not the clearest “recipe”, sorry

Nigella's chocolate Guinness cake (no frosting) is a good sturdy cake that lasts well and is also "grown up" enough as a nice pudding. Not very Xmas in smell etc but very similar in texture to gingerbread.

I've just made dozens (or so it feels like) fruit and rum cakes to mature in time for Christmas. I don't touch the foul stuff but Dparents and Dsisters do and I get the joy of feeling festive and baking which keeps me calm during these turdball times.
Just make smaller ones? As the non Christmas food lover I appreciate I am the weirdo and everyone else in my family should still get to enjoy the vileness of Christmas

I do this; www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/triple-ginger-spice-cake