It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

Rosa_Damascena

Going onto a completely different topic, what are fellow OSers doing for Christmas Cake this year? Fond as I am of it, making one is going to be just too expensive given the cost of ingredients, scarcity of eggs and oven time.

My thoughts are to hold off now and buy it in January when I find a couple of quid knocked off it at Aldi.

-taff

I'm afraid I made some...But three of the four are christmas presents, one is for me. I have a gas oven though. I made them because my father always made them for friends and family, and my cousin asked if I was making one, so I decided to make one for her, my fathers BF and someone else...

Auti

@Rosa_Damascena I am GF and have found a M and S GF iced and Marzipanned rich fruit bar cake. It is expensive as is all GF stuff but to be fair it is crammed with fruit and is a good weight. I think it is worth it and it is very tasty (I had to try one )

YoungBlueEyes

Not sure here yet. I rather like Christmas cake, himself not so much. He’d eat it if it was on a plate in front of him but he wouldn’t go looking for it. I’ve never made my own though. 

I sometimes buy the slab sort, I can get through one of them (with cheese!) but haven’t so far this year. I buy a Christmas pud every year and add it to my rotated stash. So this years will go at the back and we eat an ‘old’ one. 

Mmmmm 6 year old pud …..with cheese….. 😋

RobM99

"Mmmmm 6 year old pud …..with cheese….. 😋"

You can go off people, y'know

Just me at Christmas with Dinner The WonderCat. Christmas cake sans marzipan please - ugh, can't abide the stuff!

YoungBlueEyes

Ha haa rob 😄

Send me your marzipan, I’ll eat it to save waste! 

In fact someone should start doing chrissy cake sans marzipan, seems there’s a proper hole in the market for it…

elsien

Sibling and I have an agreement. He has my cake I have his marzipan and icing. We’re both happy.

YoungBlueEyes

I used to have to strip father’s cake. Icing off, marzipan off (and straight into my gob, like a commoner), icing back onto cake. We were both happy. 

Katiehound

I think the tea loaf I baked yesterday in the (free) slow cooker would do well as a Christmas cake with addition of some nuts & substitution of some raisins for cherries. As I have solar panels it's cost was not huge. 

Nice moist fruit crammed cake- a 2lb loaf tin full in fact.
I can just eat the marzipan free of a cake. Yum!!

YorksLass

We used to have a Dundee cake at Xmas but alas, our ancient teeth don't cope with the nuts so well these days so it's going to be a cherry Genoa instead.  And yes to cheese as an accompaniment.     Preferably a plain white Stilton but Cheshire or Wensleydale would do.

This week's meal plan has been done and should hopefully make a bit more room in the freezer.  Small grocery order coming on Tuesday and, as usual, more price increases - eggs, sugar, tins of tuna.  When will it all end?  So far, I haven't increased my grocery budget but it's definitely getting harder to stretch the cash.