so...my cake has now been in the oven for over 6 hours...

[NotanOtter]

what would you do?

It still looks moist although do not have a spike and dont want to ruin it with a knife...

i followed delia but put the oven on 2 not one as it is a very old and absolutely shit not that good..

so 6 hours 10 minutes and counting .....

i think it may need some feeding!

I had much the same yesterday and after 6+ hours took the christmas cake out of the oven only because I had to put the roast in for dinner. The underneath doesn't look very spongey but that could be due to the large quantity of booze in which the fruit had been marinating for a week. I'm now hoping that with even more booze fed into it, no one will notice the strange consistency.

oh good i am not the only one then...seems awfully long and tbh does not smell too strong yet.......

stick a knife in it, it'll be fine if you use a thin sharp one (ie, not a regular dinner knife)

if you're planning on icing it no-one will see any marks on the top.

I put a cake tester and a knife into mine and no uncooked mixture stuck to them. Conclude that the amount of booze in it has probably made it that consistency. BIL once made a Guinness cake and put a whole bottle of Guinness in rather than the prescribed amount. The cake had the consistency of jelly.

ok am about to skewer it as 7 hours since it went in!

back in! heading towards 8 hours is this a record

lol,. what recipe are you using???? mine takes 2.5 hours

Mine took 4 hours and that was a block of 9 mini cakes so if it had been one huge cake it could easily have been 6+ hours.

I have to say though the tester (bamboo skewer) came out clean but they don't look very cooked [worry]

stealth!!!

i got a bit over exited and replaced currants with a million glace cherries

i also popped apricots in

Hmmm -

currants - replaced with extra raisins.
Mixed peel (yuk) replaced with apricots
Amount of rum to soak fruit tripled doubled

I think I may begin to see why we both had/have problems

I am trying to work out who the recipients of these 9 cakes will be and whether there is one 'spare' which I could cut in half just to check.

is yours done yet?

lol changing ingredients is usually fine.

i always swap the mixed peel for dates, sultanas for raisins and add cherries and nuts

quite frankly, if it has enough alcohol no-one will care1 lol

makes me want to bake one now

I am pretty sure mine are cooked - just quite pale. Which won't matter once they are iced. I hope.

smells nice

maybe thats the 10 times amount of all spice i put in!

( swears to stick to recipe next time)