Alternative Christmas Cake ideas?

fairy_lights

Every year my mum makes Christmas cakes for everyone in the family, as well as several friends and neighbours. It must cost her a fortune in dried fruit and takes her weeks to soak the fruit, bake all the cakes, and decorate them.
She doesn't even like Christmas cake though so doesn't get to enjoy the end product, so this year I've told her I will make her an alternative Christmas cake that she will actually want to eat!


Has anyone got any ideas for what I could bake? I want it to be something special and still have a Christmassy feeling, so maybe something with the spices and alcohol from a normal Christmas cake, just not so much dried fruit.

luckofthe_irish

Some of the members of my family are not too keen on traditional Christmas cake either so my mum often bakes non-traditional cakes to try and keep everyone happy!

In the past she had made a few Nigella recipes, last year it was Italian Christmas Pudding Cake or the Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake which I love as its gluten free and still amazing ! Sorry I can't post the links, but I hope you find something your mum can enjoy too!

DigForVictory

Chocolate cake may not be dense enough to take the weight of decorations, but gets eaten easily.
Apple cake (with cumin, as well as the traditional cinnamon etc) is great fun too although I don't know how well it copes with being iced.

Armies of gingerbread people?

Dormouse1940

Gingerbread cottage or could you find a really decadent chocolate yule log recipe? (I swear by the Hairy Biker's version)

whenIretire

I'm a bit late on catching up with the christmassy threads so sorry for the late reply.

My other half hates traditional christmas cake and so I make this one.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4575/wedding-cake--light-fruit-cake

I'm not a fan of mixed peel and so I substitute it with dried cranberries.

Poddly

How about an orange or lemon theme? Lemon drizzle or a sponge with orange butter cream, or even a Middle-Eastern style orange and almond cake.

scaredy_cat

http://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/mary-berrys-tunis-cake/

polr

This sounds like me...every years I bake one and I've yet to sample it. I notied today on a Lidle advert (I think) they had gingerbread houses and I think I'm going ot do that this year so it looks pretty and I get to try it. Plus with no booze in it my toddler can have a taste too.

Izadora

Hummingbird have got a recipe for eggnog cupcakes

http://specialmealsmeg.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/eggnog-cupcakes.html

I made them as mini cupcakes (and everyone thought they were lovely) but their recipes are pretty easy to adapt to layer cakes as well (generally double the cupcake ingredients to make a 3-tier 8inch cake) if you wanted just one cake.

Happygreen

It's similar for me, I made Christmas pudding for the last years and actually I hate it. So I decided to buy a small one for OH and bake the things I like. A Pannetone with chocolate chips and a small amout of dried fruit ( ), maybe a Marzipan Stollen and lots and lots of different Continental Christmas cookies.