Stir Up Sunday

Katiehound

seen a video where Nancy Birtwhistle baked mini simnel cakes (not so different from a Christmas cake) for little presents and used washed out small baked bean tins for the baking. (3" tins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBmwkO67Mu0

sarah1972

Made a strawberry tart today with a white chocolate collar not bothering with Christmas cakes this year 

Cherryfudge

I'm going the 'whole hog' with traditional Christmas cake and pudding, but I wouldn't say 'no' to strawberry tart either.

My daughter makes waffle berry pudding at Christmas so this is now part of our traditions too.

Sarahspangles

Public Service announcement lol. Mixed peel for cakes always seems to be out of stock at this time of year. I just made my own (Jamie Oliver recipe online) and I’m never buying it again. It’s basically lemon and orange rinds (JO suggests grapefruit too) plus sugar. You do need to be around the kitchen when you make it but actual hands-on time is short. You get an amazing by product of tangy syrup we’re having on scones later.

Katiehound

I have stocked up at Aldi as that is the cheapest , but I will look at that recipe. many thanks

I rarely use my oven so might play around using my Remoska since you need to dry it out. 

Cherryfudge

My Christmas pudding is stirred up, but not yet steamed as I ran out of time and the recipe said it could stand overnight.

Does anyone here use an Instant Pot or pressure cooker for their pudding? I'm wondering whether the traditional steaming gives a more mature flavour, but I'm quite tempted to see what my IP can do (though I'm afraid of the pressure cooker setting)!

My next Christmas ambition is to make Delia's mincemeat. Every year I intend to, and every year I end up using up what I bought for 50p in the January sales eleven months ago. I rarely make mince pies either - mince meat is for stuffing baked apples or making mincemeat cake. Mince pies are from the supermarket. I'm already ahead with keeping up that tradition!

@Sarahspangles, thank you for the mention of hm candied peel! We throw out loads of orange peel though I have a bag of chopped bits in the freezer to make miser's marmalade. It looks straightforward when Jamie does it... 

Katiehound

^^^^ Don't know if it any help but a friend used to cook her puddings in the oven in a bain marie- she made quite a few small / medium puddings and these were all cooked together in a roasting tin if I remember correctly

Cherryfudge

That's a really good idea @Katiehound. I would need a mostly-free day though and I don't have one till Thursday, but I've divided my mixture into three (no idea why it seems to need three bowls as it's meant to make two x 1 pint) so a bain marie using a deep roasting dish would be perfect.

As it is, I'm wading through pressure cooker instructions for the enamel dishes and might well use the microwave for non-metal ones.

Katiehound

Here are some instructions from Nancy Birtwhistle- steaming in oven or you can cook it/them in a slow cooker
https://www.nancybirtwhistle.co.uk/recipes/christmas-pudding/

if you google cook your Christmas pudding in pressure cooker a whole raft of ideas come up- with timings/ pressure etc

Sarahspangles

Cherryfudge said:

My next Christmas ambition is to make Delia's mincemeat. Every year I intend to, and every year I end up using up what I bought for 50p in the January sales eleven months ago. I rarely make mince pies either - mince meat is for stuffing baked apples or making mincemeat cake. Mince pies are from the supermarket. I'm already ahead with keeping up that tradition!

@Sarahspangles, thank you for the mention of hm candied peel! We throw out loads of orange peel though I have a bag of chopped bits in the freezer to make miser's marmalade. It looks straightforward when Jamie does it... 

I’m making Delia’s Christmas cake this year, in fact the oven timer will go off in 30 mins. I’ve already opened the oven door briefly as my tin isn’t the right height, so I made two 4” cakes with the leftover mixture and they cooked in 90 mins. The house smells lovely. OH stares at the cake tins on top of the fridge like a golden retriever when he knows there’s cake in the house, so I did a whisky, date and walnut cake first to buy the mini fruit cakes time to mature!

I wasn’t keen on the Delia mincemeat recipe when I made it a couple of years ago. You heat the fruit with the suet to coat it and it somehow looked unpalatable once I had it in the jar. It was fine in mincemeat loaf.

I sound like one of those women who buy the Good Housekeeping Christmas mag and do all the decorating and trimmings but I’m really not, baking is the only Christmassy thing I do. Christmas lunch is tricky with vegetarians/vegans to cook for.