Christmas cake disaster! Or is it...

[longtompot]

I baked a Christmas cake yesterday, not the full time as the skewer said it was cooked all the way through.

It lied.

The cake was raw on the bottom half 🙁

Now, this may be because I veered from the recipe and used ground almonds instead of wheat flour to make it gluten free, and baked it in a well greased Bundt tin instead of a round 20cm tin, but I looked up the ratios of almond flour to use for the amount of wheat flour so it should have worked.

So, I baked it again this morning for another two hours, covered the top in a double layer of foil and it's come out looking more like Christmas pudding! So I am wondering if I not too firmly pack it into a pudding basin and steam it, it could be our Christmas pudding. Would this work? It's not dry at all, so I think it could work, but wanted to see if anyone had maybe done this, or can think of anything that might go wrong. If this was a regular cake, I would just throw it away and start again, but it's got more expensive ingredients in it so I am trying to salvage it if I can.

Any cake can be served as a pudding. I always find almond flour produces a moister cake. I am not sure you’d need to steam it. I’d keep it as it is ,not bother and reshape in a pudding basin, as that might not work.

Serve as it is, heat in foil in the oven maybe. To be honest I’d be cutting a slice and trying it beforehand then deciding on the basis of that whether it’s a pudding or a cake.

Im not sure it would hold together if you packed it in the pudding bowl but I absolutely wouldn't throw it away. Could you ice it creatively? Mountain snow scene using royal icing? It coube a funny anecdote!

Turn it into trifle?

www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit/christmas-cake-trifle/

Haha, that would be one rugged mountain for sure! 🤣 I'll take a photo and pop it up in a bit. You may change your mind on that suggestion 😬

Ok, I have it cooling on some foil so I will see how it slices and do a taste test

Here you go @Nevermine

I would probably portion it up ,microwave it and serve with custard, but I haven't got guests to worry about so it wouldn't really matter to me.

This.

Just to say I once made an incredibly expensive Christmas cake - that was so bad even the birds wouldn't eat it.

Yours looks OK in comparison.

@HelloCharming oh how gutting! Fussy birds

Another thought is to line the tin with foil, put the cake back in and then wrap it all up and feed it every week and see what we have. It might cling together enough and be used as a cake, or if it still crumbles then it can be set fire to and be smothered in brandy cream

When my father failed at Christmas cake I repurposed it into a panforte, truffles, biscotti, sticky-figgy pudding. I also froze it in chunks and used it as an ingredient as and when needed. I mix small pieces of it as a sweetener for my chocolate dip with cacao powder. I actually still have some in the freezer and it still tastes fine (the texture becomes even more dense over time).

@JPA how did you repurpose it into sticky figgy pudding? I can't use anything chocolate as my youngest is allergic

I would taste a little bit of the top. I bet it's great. Then go with your feeding plan, level the top and use those bits to fill in any remaining sunken areas. It might be a bit crumbly but still good.

If not then Christmas cake ice-cream is delicious.

Hi!
I would try some of the following...

Crumble and make Christmas pudding ice cream

See if it fries in butter (sliced if possible) and serve as a pudding with clotted cream

Crumble and mix into a gf brownie (im guessing you need gf?) Batter for a Christmas brownie

Make a sort of Christmas trifle with mandarin slices, marmalade or a curd, cream, flakes almonds

And then either try the cake with gf flour, or buy one, I can recommend a lovely gf if required

I've used failed fruit cake and turned them into rum balls. I've used this recipe using both fruit cake and also Christmas puddings.

https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/chocolate-fruitcake-rum-balls/56717e97-eeba-4ffc-a4fb-ed0e7bfc6f58

Sound delicious @JDM625 sadly can't use chocolate as my youngest is allergic to chocolate

I put the cake into a processor and pulsed until broken down a bit. I then mixed it with figs that I cut up and stewed with brandy. Poured the whole lot into a pudding basin and steamed it for about 1 hour in a pressure cooker. After that it was just a case of pouring over the toffee sauce. You wouldn't have realised it used to be a different cake.😁

@JPA that sounds delicious and I think the route I will go down. Thank you 😊

Well, finally remade my 'cake', well, crumbled it all up and mixed with some prunes stewed in Cointreau, added some orange zest and juice and is now steaming away. All being well, it will hold together and not much has been wasted (I got rid of the top of the 'cake' as it caught a bit and was a little too dark)