Sunday, November 11, 2007

Christmas Cake

I started making my Christmas cake today. I weighed out the dried fruit, chopped the glace cherries and candied peel, and poured over a few slugs of brandy. It will sit overnight so the fruit can soak up the booze, then tomorrow I'll mix and bake the cake.

I use Delia Smith's recipe. I've made it every year for well over a decade now. It's one of the few recipes I use unaltered - I usually make a few "improvements" over the years, and my copy of Delia Smith's Christmas is heavily annotated. But this cake is perfect as it is. No improvement is possible.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I make this recipe too, and recommend it to everyone i meet. In fact, i make 2 of these every year, sometimes 3.. i made one for mum, a huge 9 inch square cake.. one for me, a similar sized cake with a little taken out from mine to make a small one in a 4 inch round tin (i used a heinz pudding tin cleaned out!) for my best friend (who is the only one who likes christmas cake in her house). I'll probably make another 4 inch cake for my grandmother, although i'm not sure yet. She told me she has the WI in her village to keep her stocked up with cakes.. :) I have to say though, if you're not a fan of icing, then delia gives a lovely idea for decorating with glazed fruits and/or nuts which i did last year for mom's cake and they said it was gorgeous, nicer than the usual one and i think they're doing it again this year. I'll have to post some pics of the finished version from last year.