Christmas Cake

[FlutteryButterfly]

Anyone made a start? I'm gradually getting the ingredients in and will be feeding the fruit from Halloween 😂. I go for good old Delia's recipe bur with personal tweaks. Only undecided is this year's decoration- tacky or sophisticated ......?

I do a Delia-With-Tweaks too .....but I've decided not to make one this year .

Usually I do Amaretto soaked sultanas (bought some gorgeous Turkish sultanas last year ) caster sugar so it's lighter and no spices . I use orange and lemon rind (grated ) loads of cherries and almonds .
I make Delias marzipan and a thin layer of royal icing .

The recipe I have is quite an old book so it needs less cooking time .

I really don;t like any bought Christmas Cake

If I make one ( aargh I'm talking myself round now !) it;ll be November at the earliest . I don;t decorate it though

I have made two and have one more to do, Delia's recipe here too.

I'm going to make one in a couple of weeks. Always use Delia's recipe.
We are all very boring and predictable. Anyone have any other good recipes?

Mary Berry fan here- i find it a little more moist. Not enough cherries for me though so always add in extra. Will be making it next week

Made mine this week, one is dairy free. Feed them weekly until time to marzipan.

Mary Berry's here. DD14 is making it this year. Fruit is soaking in rum and she's making it on Sun (school hols here so want it done and tucked away in the cupboard before we go back to school and work on Mon). I never feed it and decorate it a few days before Christmas with dried fruit and nuts.

I make this rum cake instead of a traditional fruit cake. https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/food/recipe46.shtml

I don't like royal or fondant icing and we have a mix of people here who actively dislike marzipan and others who don't care about it one way or ther other, so we don't bother with any of that. This is really more of a New Year cake as we don't tend to broach it till the mince pies are gone. I use the quantities to make one big cake and I don't bother separating the eggs. The fruit soaks for a couple of weeks before I make the cake. This year's cake is made and sitting in its tub, awaiting its moment!

My fruit is soaking right now in a bath of rum lol. I saw a tip to leave it in a big freezer bag so it can be turned often….easier to store than a big bowl too.

I’ll probably make it on Sunday week.

I put my fruit in a large Lock&Lock box so I can see the level of liquid and I can give it a good shake .

I used Mrs Crocombes one, from YouTube, it's wonderful but I put glace cherries in, insread of the dried ones she specifies. It gives a much nicer result. We will make the marzipan ourselves, and I only like it without almond essence, so it's quite plain but sweet and naturally nutty. Love making it almost more than eating it tbh.

I’ve decided on the decoration. Will start getting the ingredients gathered soon. I start soaking the fruit mid November in sherry and make it early December. It’s sort of a Nigella recipe though I’ve tweaked it a lot.

I soak my fruit in Lidls amaretto. I'll take a look at Mary's recipe but find Delia's foolproof.

Just had a message from my mum saying she's just put hers in the oven. She uses my nans old recipe.

This year I intend to make the Delia Smith Irish Whiskey Christmas Cake. A friend made it a couple of years ago and it was divine. I will use a bog standard whiskey.

Mine was made at the beginning of September this year as I knew I was going to have a very busy few months ahead. I just hope it survives 😬. I use a James Martin recipe with a few tweaks. I’ve tried various Delia, Mary Berry, Good Housekeeping ones over the years but stuck to James Martin’s for the last 3 years and I love it. You have to boil the fruit, which means you don’t need to soak the fruit beforehand (although I always do anyway). I double the quantity as we get through a lot of cake over Christmas 😂.

I make this most years, it's lush

I made mine over the weekend, which is much earlier than usual. I use a bbc good food one, which always seems to go down well.

I haven't made one for the last few years - I love it but DH and DS don't, so I end up eating it all by myself into February. This year I've decided to make a loaf-tin version using Delia's recipe, should hopefully be a good compromise.

I've made 2 so far with the Delia recipe. The first one burnt as it's a fan oven and I didn't take that into account. The second one looks so much better.
The first one is almost half eaten!

I love making one - I also soak in cheap amaretto, and don't use rind or glacé cherries so substitute for those.

However and DC and DH won't eat it, and my DF would eat it but doesn't like icing.

I've been halving the Mary Berry recipe and not icing it. Unless anyone has a good small cake recipe?

I use Delia's recipe. It works, so why change?

I've been soaking my fruit (sultanas, raisins, cherries and orange peel) in Cointreau for a year. 💣

My Nan taught me to make boiled fruit cake when I was little and nothing has ever come close to her fruit cake so I've made mine already. About 2-3 weeks ago. I used soaked fruit and boiling the fruit really increases the moistness. I am really looking forward to it as I haven't made it the last few years.

I use a recipe from a little ‘Stork’ cookbook dating from the mid 1970s and follow it closely apart from using butter rather than Stork. It handily has seven separate lists of ingredients suitable for cake tins from 6 inches round to 12 inches.
One year I rashly tried a ‘Caribbean’ cake involving chocolate. ‘ Nice, Mum. Don’t do it again’.

Looking forward to seeing some of these creations!

I made two Delia creole Christmas cakes today. House smells grand.