christmas cake

:j *hands waving up high at the back*.......Yes please if you would pm the receipe. I dont tend to make christmas pudding as my oh is the only one that eats it...but I think I should really make a special one for him

Kethry, don't suppose you could share your pickled onion recipe? I adore pickled shallots/onions and would love to make some of my own. no idea where to start though!!!! have got delia's recipe for the cake, can't wait to get started on it!!!

If anyone is looking for something different to mince pies to add to the xmas cake/pudding etc stock when the time comes, I tend to make 'open' ones with puff pastry and mincemeat that i've added chopped dried cranberrys to. always go down a storm and i find them lighter than traditional mince pies which are too heavy for me.

midlandsfairy wrote: »

Kethry, don't suppose you could share your pickled onion recipe? I adore pickled shallots/onions and would love to make some of my own. no idea where to start though!!!! have got delia's recipe for the cake, can't wait to get started on it!!!

midlands fairy - you're more than welcome to have the recipe, such as it is. Its the first year i've made them though so i have *no* idea if this is a good recipe or not. You need 2.5 lbs of onions (silverskin or pickling - i used shallots), salt, 2 bayleaves, 4tsp mustard leaves, 2-4 dried red chillies (optional) and malt vinegar to cover. I used a recipe for flavoured vinegar which i'll go into later.

Anyway, peel, top and tail the onions and put them into a huge bowl. Cover with water, then measure the amount of water you need to cover them (i.e. put the water in to the point where they're covered, then pour it out into a jug and measure as you go). Add 75g or 2.5 oz of salt for every litre (1 3/4 pints) water. Weight down the onions (cos they'll float - put a plate on top or something), and leave for 24 hours.

prepare your flavoured vinegar or use malt (but boil for 10 minutes beforehand to sterilise).

Sterilise some jars with vinegar proof lids (i.e. jars that have had pickles in already would be good) by washing in hot soapy water and drying in the oven. Once the jars are dried, pack the onions, bayleaves, mustard seeds and chillis into the jars, and pour the hot vinegar over, making sure the onions are all submerged. Put lids on straight away and put in a cool place. They'll be ready in 3-4 weeks.

To make the flavoured vinegar, you can either use pickling spice which you can buy, ready prepared, scharwtz do a blend, or you can do the following: get a square of muslin and in the middle put some a large chunk (5cm) piece of ginger root, sliced, 2 tbsp coriander seeds, 1 tbsp black peppercorns, 1tbsp cardamom pods, 1 tbsp allspice berries, 2 cinnamon sticks, crushed, 2 nutmegs broken into pieces, 1 tsp aniseed, and a few strips of orange or lemon rind. tie the muslin up and put in a large pan with 2 litres (3 1/2 pints) malt vinegar and 1 tbsp salt. Bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes.

I have to be honest and admit that i didn't have muslin, so i just chucked it all in (besides i like the seeds floating around in the jar - it looks purty!) and i didn't have allspice berries, just the powder, didn't have any aniseed at all and no orange or lemon rind! so its obviously very flexible. I also added the packet of schwartz pickling spice i had as i didn't have any mustard seeds. It will either be mind blowing or totally inedible.. but then, i love experimenting!

The schwartz packet had a recipe for pickled onions on the side and it too recommends salting the onions for 24 hours before hand, by the way, so the salting part is obviously crucial.

Hope all that helps!!

keth
xx

p.s. Fen1 - recipe is on the way to you in pm (or will be in a mo when i do it!) xx

If im not too late - I would love the Christmas pud recipe please :-)