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Christmas cake and puddings!
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hi All,
I proper excited for xmas already - sad I know! and to get in the xmas spirit I want to make my own cake and pudding, I have never done it before and I wondered how far in advance should you make them and do you have any tried and tested recipies that you like to use?
Many Thanks
AFA
I proper excited for xmas already - sad I know! and to get in the xmas spirit I want to make my own cake and pudding, I have never done it before and I wondered how far in advance should you make them and do you have any tried and tested recipies that you like to use?
Many Thanks
AFA
0
Comments
Cake about the middle of October.
My top tips for a decent cake.
Get a good, sturdy, loose bottom...........................tin None of this 'value' range. You want a good tin because it's going to be in the oven 3 hours(ish) and you don't want it to buckle.
Get good (though not Harraodsesque) ingredients. Unsalted butter, a decent brand of brandy or rum. It's omnly once a year so why not splash out.
Get brown paper. You need it to tie round the tin to help prevent the cake burning. Greaseproof just doesn't do the job.
Mix by hand. There's something really satisfying about making a Christmas cake with bid ol' wooden spoon
Plan your icing out before hand. You can make a stencil with greaseproof/tracing paper then prick the pattern through onto the iced cake and pipe it. If you can't pipe make a 'snow scene' cake.
If you like really almondy marzipan make your own. It's really easy.
If you're making marzipan figures (coloured) get white marzipan or modelling icing. The yellow tinge of marzipan makes blue hard to get.
Don't be over ambitious with your icing. Keep it simple and people will still be impressed.
If you dont want to buy a whole tin of black treacle. Put in some extra sugar/golden syrup and a teaspoon or two of gravy browning (what i do).
http://vbulletin.thesite.org/showpost.php?p=2090051&postcount=1
http://vbulletin.thesite.org/showpost.php?p=2213951&postcount=6
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/the-classic-christmas-cake.html
Make it in a couple of weeks time. Then every week until about 3 weeks before Christmas, feed it 2-3 tablespoons or rum/brandy and re-wrap it.
Then you marzipan it.
http://www.cookuk.co.uk/cake/recipe_christmas-cake_marzipan.htm
After marzipanning it, it must be left to dry for at least 1 week. Otherwise the yellow will seep through and spoil your icing.
Royal ice it. This is the only step-by-step guide i could find and the photos are a bit crap
http://www.cookuk.co.uk/cake/recipe_christmas-cake_traditionalicing.htm
If this is your first one, you might want to try a snow scene cake.
Cover the marzipanned cake in royal icing (which you've put a few tablespoons of extra sugar inquite thickly. Make sure it's all covered then 'tap' it all over with a palette knife so you get peaks all over it. Looks great and you don't have to get an even surface like a royal iced cake.
Remember, when decorating/piping a royal iced cake less IS more. It's so white the colour is really intense. You'll see that i didn't do much coloured icing on my holly and tree cake, just a few red dots, but it looks really colourful.
I also use the delia recipe for christmas puddings and they are really good too
You can make them that far in advance, if they need to keep for over a year.
There's 2 traditions i can think of
1. Christmas cake is supposesd to be eaten on Christmas Day tea, but it's good luck to eat a piece of last years cake on Christmas Eve.
2. The top tier of a wedding cake is saved to be eaten on the couples first anniversary.
So you'd need a cakey that lasts a year
Really ? I'm not over keen on peel but you don't get that slightly 'bitter twang' without it.
I made a tropical Christmas cake once. Same recipe but didn't use treacle and used a mixture of dried pineapple, guava, cherries, apricots (i know not v.tropical) etc. It was ok, but i prefer the real thing with a nice cup of tea to wash the icing down.
2 things with it though.
I didnt 'finely chop' the glace cherries. I like big buggers you can see in the cake so just cut them in half.
SHe didn't use the juice from the orange and lemon so i put that in with fruits to soak. I'll put in 3oz of ground almonds in when i make the cake tomorrow to sopak up any excess liquid though with over 2lbs of dried fruit/preserved fruit i don't think there's gonna be much left