Christmas Cake

Simba_25

i have never made a xmas cake before but need to this year for the cake decorating course im doing! We are making poinsetters (sp?) out of flower paste for the top.

the thing is we dont really drink so i dont want to do one and keep adding alcohol to it as it just wont get eaten. Is it neccessary to add the alcohol each week?? If i make it now and dont add it will it be dry and horrible by xmas?? When would you suggest i make it? we are not making the decoration for another few weeks yet but with them been flowers they keep forever anyhow so thats not a problem if i make them before the cake.

Sorry for all the questions lol just dont want to mess it up if i can help it
thanks!

billieboy_2

Simba_25 wrote:

the thing is we dont really drink so i dont want to do one and keep adding alcohol to it as it just wont get eaten. Is it neccessary to add the alcohol each week?? If i make it now and dont add it will it be dry and horrible by xmas?? When would you suggest i make it? we are not making the decoration for another few weeks yet but with them been flowers they keep forever anyhow so thats not a problem if i make them before the cake.

Sorry for all the questions lol just dont want to mess it up if i can help it
thanks!

Well Delia says "I like to feed the cake" not "you must" so presumably you don't have to add it. Maybe to be on the safe side I'd not make it until about late November. I don't know what anyone else thinks? I've not made one without feeding it before.

squeaky

I'd say about the same but then, I've never not fed one either. Pure guesswork

soba

I bought a syringe from the local chemists, the type you use to give young children their medicine (cost about 20p) and use that to feed my xmas cake, this means that your feeding liquor gets to the midldle of the cake instead of dribbling on to the work surface!!

Ticklemouse

Curry_Queen wrote:

I have to eat mine with cheese, preferably Wensleydale or Cheshire, which a lot of people find weird but then I am a Yorkie lass

Well, I'm a Lanky lass and I LOVE cheese with fruit cake The above 2 are nice or a bit of caerphilly goes well too.

whitty999

Any offers of making me a homemade Christmas cake!!!,Remember my grans so really taste a taste not like shop bought ones.
If you have one going spare i will oblige!!

maryb

Don't know if this will help any one but I always get cross when I need to buy another bag of dried fruit or whatever because I'm just a little bit short of one ingredient but I never had the nerve to vary the recipe. Then one year I sat down and analysed all the Christmas cake recipes I could find and worked out that they all go along these lines:



For every 1 unit of weight of flour use 0.5 to 1 of butter and the same of sugar.

use 4 to 6 eggs per pound of flour. So far the proportions are like a basic sponge

To decide how much of each type of dried fruit to use take equal weights of
sultanas
currants
raisins
cherries and/or dried apricots

that lot in total should equal four fifths of the weight of the flour ie each ingredient equals 20% of the flour weight. Some recipes increase the currants and reduce the cherries/dried apricots. The remaining ingredients bring it up to the total weight of the flour and are split equally between candied peel (or ginger) and nuts.

This made me much more confident about altering the recipe when I was just a little bit short of one ingredient. I did the same for mincemaet recipes and Christmas pudding recipes and I now find I don't waste any dried fruit

nicki_2

maryb wrote:

I now find I don't waste any dried fruit

I never waste dried fruit either - DD and I eat it as a snack or put it ontop of porridge. :drool: We do have to watch how much of it we eat in one go though :eek: