Christmas Cake..........It's that time.............Who is signing up this year...............

[UCM]

You have a month or so to buy ingredients but this is a copy of what I wrote last year. Please use this thread to tell us of fantastic recipes and to add the general lovliness of anticipation

6oz sultanas
6oz raisins
4oz currants
4oz glacecherries
3oz mixed peel
1/4 pint sherry
6oz butter
6oz soft brown sugar
4 eggs
4oz SR flour
4oz plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1oz ground almonds

Mix together all fruit. pour sherry over and leave to soak for 1 week, covered. Stir frequently until required.

Grease & line a 7 - 8 inch cake tin

Method

Cream butter & sugar until soft & fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold in flour, salt & ground almonds. Drain off any liquid from the fruit and mix fruit into mixture stirring until well blended. Put into prepared tin, smooth top and bake just below middle of oven for 1 hour on gas mark 3. Then cover with foil and reduce oven to gas mark 2 and cook for a further 1.5 hours until firm to touch. Leave to stand in tin until nearly cold. remove from tin, prick well and pour over liquid from dried fruit. Wrap in foil or greaseproof paper and leave to mature until a few days before christmas, then marzipan & ice.

Tips: I don't like almonds so didn't use em. I also put some chocolate liqueur in with the sherry. also I don't like marzipan so didn't ice, but did make one for a relative which I did ice and it was easy. I have never made a christmas cake before and I have to say this recipe works like a dream.

Well ???????

Good plan on the schnapps. Maybe white rum could work as well. Probably best I do some serious hands on research on this and report back after I have perused the drinks cabinet for pale spirits.

oooo I've just had a horible thought about this........when is the whole process (fruit soaking or whatever comes first) supposed to start?? As I won't be able to get the ingredients until the end of the month !

You can soak for 24 hours, simmer in booze for 3 hours or leave it for a couple of weeks, it doesn't matter, your cake will taste gorgeous. Obviously as it matures the booze taste gets stronger I think, but generally it doesn't matter that much. I originally started soaking for 24 hours but things got in the way and I ended up soaking for 2 weeks

Oh and QoQ, nobody made them the same time last year, so you will definitely not be alone

so when are we supposed to start all this - will I be too late at the end of the month????? (QoQ desperatekly doesn't want to mess up her first HM Christmas cake )

I started the thread about a month earlier this year, to give every a chance to get gear, so I guess about mid October, that do ya??? But it really doesn't matter if you do it in November. Everyone will dip in & out of the thread as & when they do stuff. Was brill last year and there are loads more takers this year.

mid October would be great - first thing I need to buy is a cake tin - I don't actually own one !

Can't you borrow one, not worth buying one, specially only for a Christmas cake!

Now my 8 inch Victoria Sponge Sandwiches get used all of the time, but My deep sponge one doesn't only at Xmas.

I'd like to do a square one, so what size square tin would this recipe fit in?

My mum and brother both do square ones and I know I'm going to be in direct competition with them so want to start on an even plain. When I finished decorating DD's birthday cake 3 people compared it to DB's previous offerings so this one has to be good. It's all about the icing you know.

no - I shall have my own - I have to - I've made a "vow" that I WILL do more home baking (as opposed to cooking which I do every night lol) from now on - my mum always used to make everything from scratch....and I felt bad enough knowing she managed it but I don't....but then having stayed with my (lovely) SIL last week I've been seriously put to shame - there was a delicious chocolate cake (amongst other yummy things) there on the first night.....which I thought she'd bought..but she didn't she made it herself.

Can't possibly have the DS's raving about "aunty xx's lovely cakes" etc above mine

Ooh, I hadn't thought about making a Christmas cake so early. I made this Delia creole one last year and it is AMAZINGLY delicious. Glazed nuts instead of icing, no marzipan, no glace cherries - lots of rum, brandy, port and angostura bitters, but it doesn't have a really alcoholly taste. Very easy to make too.

I use Delia's Christmas cake and pud recipes. Even my FIL likes them and he will only usually eat shop-bought stuff.

i put whisky and brandy in mine. Cake is marzipaned and iced at DH's request. Was thinking of making the cake this weekend.

MoosMa, I have one of these cake tins from Lakeland. I cannot recomend them highly enough. They are expensive but because you can alter the position of the dividers you can make a oblong or square cake to whatever size you like.

The tin comes with a recipe for rich fruit cake (ie christmas cake) with all the different quantities depending on what size square you go for.

For dd's Christening I did a big and small sqaure, came out fab.

Oh wow! I have never made an xmas cake before...

Will set a day aside to do sometime before middle of october

MIL makes one for DH every year, and gives it to me to 'feed' throughout the following weeks with whatever spirit she has used that particular year. Unfortunately, I usually forget which spirit she has used, and we can have christmas cake laced with brandy, whisky, rum etc etc. A veritable christmas cake cocktail!

I would like to make my own, but MIL loves to make a whole load of them for her 'boys', and who am I to deprive her of that simple joy?

I might join you with the icing, though, as she always leaves the cake bare.

can i join the MNWI please? cake baking day in our house is 1 october, so I will be following your recipe then if that's ok?

I am a truly crap baker though so it'll probably be propping the door open on christmas day

made mine last week (using Delias recipe)as went back to work this week and didn't manage to make one last year, but I will need help when it comes to the decorating bit as not very good at decorating it.

Hello , I'm new to MN but was so thrilled to find others who love all the anticipation-thought I was starting early on 1st October! I have a cake that I made last year which I will ice-marzipan and the whole catastrophe, piles of icing snowballs(or reindeer poo as my children prefer to call it)and a couple of plastic trees. It has to be kitsch-its a tradition!I will however still make another one because I just love doing it! I follow Delia slavishly when it comes to Christmas Cake.

If I bake UCMs receipe now (after soaking the fruit) will it really keep for Christmas?

Do I ice it now or later?

And what booze can I use thats not brandy/whisky but sweeter?

Panicpants of course it will. I only gave mine away recently as in last month (well half of it anyway).

Ice about 2 weeks before though.

Ok, for fellow pedants
'Stir up' Sunday in NOT called that because its when to make your Christmas puddings - but because the collect for the day (I believe, not being CoE myself) goes something like 'Stir up, oh Lord, the wills of your faithful people; etc.
However it is nonetheless a useful reminder for cooks!

I'm in this year

OOOh yes I will bemaking this year

But i will add in gin, as thats what MIL uses in her cakes and she wins awards

Right then, I'm in! Thanks UCM.

Now what can I use for booze - malibu? sambooka? tia maria?.............