Christmas cake timelines

[Littlegreywolfcub]

When do you start thinking about making Christmas cake? I made one for the first time last year which turned out surprisingly well 😄(if I say so myself) at the beginning of December.

Interested to hear if people have different traditions doing this. I'll probably wait til after Halloween and then go for it

I'm interested in this too! I have been making the cake for the last 4 years when my mum began to find it too hard.

I usually do it early November and feed it ( subject of debate in our house)

I always think I do the marzipan and icing too close together and too close to Christmas so would be interested on views around that!

We do ours middle of October - wrap in grease proof paper and store in a tin until a couple of weeks before Christmas; then take out to do marzipan. Ours is soaked in alcohol for a week beforehand so doesn’t need feeding at all.

I'm a feeder! so mid-October! 🎄

I tend to bake mine on the day we put up decorations around the 1st December

Need to allow the marzipan to dry out before you do the icing - I try to allow a week - but we make our own marzipan which may be a bit wetter than shop-bought.

I like to make it and leave it so I’m making mine this weekend. The fruit has been soaking (drowning) since Monday so I only feed it once or twice. I do the marzipan and icing Christmas Eve.

Fruit cakes taste better the longer they’ve had to mature. We’ve had some that have ended up not being eaten for several years, and they’ve been the absolute best ones.

it’s never too early to make your Christmas cake. Make two now, one for next year!

Can you explain the soaking in alcohol rather than feeding - as you can tell I am not a baker!

Thank you - I am not leaving nearly enough time.
I make my own royal icing but have not manage to make my own marzipan yet- I am guessing it tastes much nicer?!
@Littlegreywolfcub apologies for taking over your thread- I am so grateful that you started it!

I do mine on Stir Up Sunday (last Sunday in November). I make Delia’s Creole Christmas cake though which is incredibly easy but always turns out delicious, which involves simmering all the dried fruit and nuts in a ton of booze first then leaving for at least a week before baking the cake, so I do the fruit bit that weekend, and then bake the cake either the following weekend or whenever I can find the time. The cake doesn’t then need feeding as the dried fruit has already soaked up all the alcohol so it’s lovely and moist. I make the mincemeat the same weekend, but that also benefits from ages maturing and can be made earlier (in fact I don’t think I need to make any this year as made so much last year).

That is interesting - and I had no idea! I like the notion of making your own marzipan

@veryoldwoman- I just chuck the fruit (basically a 1kg bag of mixed dried fruit) in a bowl and pour over the best part of a pint of brandy. Give it a good stir; cover with clingfilm. Keep stirring a few times a day throughout the week; the fruit will absorb it all and really swells. If you’re not sure, go for less alcohol to start with and add it throughout the week so you can see that it gets absorbed. The fruit may still be a bit wet at the end of the week but gets absorbed when you make the cake and add the flour.

Mmmm - like the sound of this.

Icing was actually a fun part of doing the cake, and doing that on Christmas Eve seems like a nice tradition. We were still eating ours until well after Easter...

Home made marzipan is dead easy and tastes so much better. Quite sticky to roll out but dh does that bit 🤣. Will try and find the recipe.

I do mine mid October. I put more alcohol in as soon as it’s out of the oven and then leave to go cold and double wrap with greaseproof then foil.
I may feed it again mid Nov, I just see how it looks/feels.
I marzipan mid December, leave unwrapped for a week & Ice a few days before Christmas.
It’s a James Martin recipe. Been doing it about 15 years now.

This. It's like wedding cake where traditionally, the top tier was used as the first born's Christening cake, so commonly at least a year old by then.

I haven't done one this year yet, but for a lot of years, I did mine on August Bank Holiday Monday because DP was always working, I never was and the weather was usually shit.

Ok, homemade marzipan:
225g ground almonds
110g caster sugar
110g icing sugar
half teaspoon almond essence
1 egg
juice of half a lemon

Mix almonds and sugars, beat in egg, essence and add lemon juice until it forms a pliable paste. Knead paste until smooth then roll out using plenty of icing sugar (it gets sticky!); roll out into a circle about 3 inches larger than the cake (although ours is always square so that’s a challenge!).

Brush cake with jam as normal (we’ve used homemade marmalade inthe past which also works!); then lay the marzipan over the cake and smooth over sides. The recipe says to leave for a minimum of 24 hours and up to a week to dry out before icing.

Thank you all @stringbean I have made a note of the marzipan recipe

I am definitely going to do the soaking for a week/ no feeding- have used a Nigella recipe which just says boil up fruit and brandy and leave to cool.

I make 7 9inch cakes and the last one was done yesterday. I’m actually a little late this year it’s DH birthday on the 13th September and I like to have them made before his birthday 😂. They are left in the paper I line the tins with, I wrap like a gift with more grease proof paper then a Christmas tea towel (I have these just for wrapping my cakes ) and store them in a cupboard in the hall which is vented and stays at a steady temperature. I lift mine and my brothers out every 3 weeks or so to feed with Sherry.

in November I marzipan then wrap in just the tea towel to dry the marzipan. I then start icing beginning December. I always do ours first and display it in a glass dome and tbh we often cut it a week before Christmas. We always put the tree up on about the 15th and always have a slice of cake when it’s finished.

the others I do leading up to Christmas, I have the grandchildren after school a few days a week and we always decorate theirs together on the last week at some point ready for them to take home. The others are decorated and collected that week leading up to Christmas,

I make my puddings too, they are made in august I cook them in the slow cooker so the kitchen doesn’t get to hot and they are amazing I would recommend anyone making puddings to use the slow cooker

Delia suggests soaking the fruit in a few tablespoons of brandy for a day. I use an entire bottle for at least a week. Sometimes it’s been longer if I’ve got distracted.

then when I drain the fruit I filter the brandy back into a bottle (through a coffee filter) and it’s the most delicious fruity brandy ever. Sometimes of this gets used to feed the cake over the coming months (I soak and feed 😱). Sometimes of it gets added to Prosecco for super Christmassy cocktails.

And if we are talking puddings, I do that about once every three or four years, and make a big batch. They get stored in the wardrobe. Again, the oldest one is always the best.

If you couldn’t use alcohol (AF family member) but were thinking of using tea, when do you think it would be best to make it?

If you are at home with the DC during half term, then I find that it is a good time to get ahead with Christmas baking.

I have used Nigella's recipe for 20 years and it's never let me down. I soak the fruit for a week and make it late November. Never made my own marzipan, might try that this year.

I do mine on Stir Up Sunday (last Sunday in November).
SUS is traditionally for the pudding, not the cake.