Nigella's Christmas Cake

[jennymac]

Going to make a Christmas cake for the first time this year and thought I would try Nigella's recipe from her Feast book. Has anyone tried this one yet?

No but Delia's one is lovely .
I'd be very interested to know how you get on with this though so please report back!

Ok - but if it's a disaster it might have little to do with Nigella and more to do with me! BTW - anyone know where to buy brown paper?

I bake Nigellas cake every year and it is gorgeous. Although I am on a diet and for the 1st time every have decided not to make one as its normally me who ends up eating the whole lot

I got brown paper from the post office!

I've made her recipe from her Domestic Goddess book for the last four years. This is the recipe that she repeats in Feast (I've got that too!). It's really good.
This year's version is sitting all wrapped up in the cupboard just waiting for me to eat it...
Do make sure you do all the tin lining/wrapping so that you don't end up with burned crusts. Good luck!

X-posts regarding wrapping
Yes, go to the post office, a big roll of brown paper will be a pound or two.

There's a chocolate and rum cake in this month's Red magazine, looks absolutely gorgeous.

Made cake last night - have to say was a bit worried during the making as there seemed to be far too much fruit and not enough other stuff but it smelled delicious and looked fine when I took it out of the oven after midnight! Will have to wait till Christmas though to see if it actually tastes ok - such a long time!

I made it for the first time a couple of weeks ago.
I too thought I'd got the amount of fruit wrong because there was so much, but it seemed to mix in ok. I forgot to get brown paper, so had a Blue Peter moment with a pack of A4 brown envelopes - worked a treat.
I have to admit i thought it looked a bit pale when it came out of the oven, I'm used to Christmas cake looking very dark brown, almost black - please tell me I've not undercooked it.

What type of sugar did you use igivein ?

You can wrap the tin in newspaper, it does the same job.

Her chocolate fruit cake is delicious - my parents always make it. yummmm

Dark brown sugar

Mine looked a bit paler than my mum's usually does but the skewer came out clean (or cleanish - by 12.30am I was a bit past caring!). I used dark brown sugar also even though Nigella didn't specify!

Does the recipe include black treacle? I used dark brown sugar and black treacle and mine is dark.

Although I guess it doesn't matter as it's going to be marzipaned and iced!

I'm trying Nigella's Easy Action Christmas cake. My friend made it for me last year and it was the moistest, yummiest christmas cake I've ever eaten. Although I have already deviated from the recipe and am currently bathing the fruit in large quantities of booze...

I've done Nigella's christmas cake a couple of times - really easy, absorbs a lot of booze, lasts forever (I threw out the last of last year's in June eventually. We get fruitcake overload fast in this house.).

It's pretty expensive if you make it properly - but I reckon it's nicer than most of the posh christmas cakes you can buy, and roughly the same price.

How often do people "top it up" with brandy? Every week until it's iced? And how much brandy are you meant to put in each time?

I usually top up every Sunday, normally a couple of tablespoons. Then marzipan it 2 weeks before, and ice it 1 week before.

This year I have made 1 large family sized cake and 4 smaller sized to give as gifts for friends who have never had proper christmas cake before (we live abroad).

I didn't think they would be so time consuming to look after!

Thanks MrsMills - hopefully by next year I'll be an expert!

im just baking the christmas cake from the domestic goddess book, its very pale really, and looks quite insipid for a fruit cake but it doesnt have treacle in so maybe its meant to be paler!
i cant find an image of what its soposed to look like either which doesnt help.
but its still got an hour of cooking to go, if its not great im going with delia. iv heard its a great cake.
any advice would be great. thanks kate

do i need to marzipan it before icing as i hate marzipan but would still like to decorate.?

I made her chocolate christmas cake last year, it was gorgeous and no need for horrid thick icing! just warm with cream :)
I had builders in at the time and got them tasting the mix for me as I had a cold and no sense of taste/smell...

I love marzipan but MIL is staying at the mo and there was a piece on this in her Good Housekeeping magazine. Apparently, the marzipan stops any moisture seeping through to the icing on the outside and spoiling the appearance but if you don't like it, they suggested using fondant icing instead of the marzipan and then finishing up with another layer of fondant icing or royal icing - whichever you prefer. I'm guessing you would need to use quite thin layers of icing though to make sure it wasn't too sweet. (FWIW, there is no such thing as a too-sweet Xmas cake in my book but I know lots of people disagree! :))