Please help.....RICH FRUIT ...CHRISTMAS ...CAKE ........COOKED TOO LONG NOW IS DRY ......HOW MAKE IT MOIST???????

[RTKangaMummy]

.

PLease help

christmas cake cooked for parents golden wedding

Left it in oven for TOO LONG

and now it is dry {I THINK} how do we make it soft and moist again?

Have drippled sherry on through little holes in the surface.

Anything else we can do?

Am going to put layer of marzipan through middle.

Please help

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are you sure it's dry? they do take a very, very long time to cook
i am sure the sherry will have done the trick!

Shove a bit of brandy along with the sherry and they'll get so tipsy on it they won't notice whether it's dry or not

i think all you can do is keep adding the sherry... and also add a layer of apricot jam before the layer of marzipan.. hope it works!!

you can feed it with booze for ages Rtkm. My mum makes her xmas cake in september and feeds it weekly with cognac until xmas.
s'very popularrrrrrrrr.
sherry should work!

put a skewer through it 5-6 times and 'feed' it with sherry or brandy

DH checked with the skewer thing and it came out very clean after it was cooked and the top is a bit burnt but that will be cut of to make flat anyway

That was last night

and today he put the sherry on and he said he it was hard

no, i reathe meant to use the skewers to make holes in the cake that you can feed with booze, that was you moisten the insides of the cake as well as the surface iyswim

It came out of oven 45 mins early we do have a FAN oven though

Should we carry on with sherry or mix sherry and brandy?

I have to decorate deffo by tuesday

so need to put on marzipan on sunday or monday

can use both i have and is scrummy. god my finger hurts i may have to lie down for a bit!

Thanks guys and you are really deffo brill

DS rally likes christmas cake and so will have to be rationed with all this booze

We soaked the fruit in booze too overnight

rtkm i am sure it'll be fine! i had the same worry when i made my first ever xmas cake last year!
but it was fine!
i was worried because it felt really hard... but i kept feeding it with brandy and it was absolutely fine!

Think that is what we will do

Make it tippsy

And ration DS so he doesn't have too much

I knew MUMSNET would have the answer

The power of mumsnet

ant chance you could make another one just in case and if the first one works out ok just "feed" the second one until xmas for a "very merry xmas"

Thing is really running out of time

should have done it weeks ago

Needs to be finished by tuesday at very very latest and it will take ages to decorate

it'll be fine! honest!
if it isn't just blame someone else.

but I can only blame DH and DS and ME

cos we all did it together

phew, when I read the title of this I thought that someone on mumsnet was immensely organised and ripening the christmas cake til christmas.

I feel so much better now!

HEYYYyyyyy...... I CAN make a christmas cake now can't I, with no sterilising to do

DEFFO can with all your new freedom

Message withdrawn

good idea turning it upside down

I wrote christmas cake cos that is what the recipe was, ie not a plain sponge one IYSWIM

you guys are sooooooooooo deffo brill

I always wrap mine in greaseproof/baking paper and then in foil to keep it moist ... and add loads of booze! Am sure it'll be lovely!

it is wrapped up in greaseproof and tin foil already

I know this is a bit late, but......
As a general rule, if you put a tray of water in the oven along with the cake, it will be lovely and moist and minimal hardened outer crust too.

Not that I've baked a cake in ages.......

good tip

Another good tip (from saint Delia) is to wrap a rich fruit cake in two layers of brown paper and place a sheet of greaseproof paper with a hole the size of a 50p cut in it over the top when you cook the cake. Sounds a faff but it works a dream and I always do it when i cook the xmas cake. Helps to stop it drying