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.

2 comments:

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.

Chile said...

I looked at the recipe. Is "black treacle" the same as molasses?

I've never made fruitcake (that's what this is, right?) but it looks interesting. It's about time for me to break out the Christmas Stollen recipe for a nice sweet yeasty bread.