Christmas cake - dilemma and decision

Peasblossom

In school I used to make individual round Christmas cakes with the children using small baked bean tins. Washed out obviously. Cheap and you get the beans for supper?

They baked perfectly and any equally sized tin would do.

Great idea.

1'd go for cooking the big one and cutting up. Cooking times for small tins would be different and more risk of a dry cake.

Peasblossom

In school I used to make individual round Christmas cakes with the children using small baked bean tins. Washed out obviously. Cheap and you get the beans for supper?

They baked perfectly and any equally sized tin would do.

Great minds think alike!

I don’t see why not. Your knife would have to be really sharp (kitchen knife rather than cake knife) but I recently cut up some Guinness Chocolate Brownies and they cut very cleanly (probably because of the booze as of course would be the case with your cake.)
Many years ago in my catering incarnation I baked “individual” Christmas cakes in (I didn’t tell my customers) this) 800g Pedigree Chum tins! Carefully washed out in the dishwasher of course and equally carefully lined. I don’t remember the exact diameter but it made a good sized cake for a couple and the dog appreciated the dog food.

In school I used to make individual round Christmas cakes with the children using small baked bean tins. Washed out obviously. Cheap and you get the beans for supper?

They baked perfectly and any equally sized tin would do.

Have you tried freezing it? Perhaps freeze the portions before adding marzipan. However, wrapped up in foil it should last at lease a month in a tin. Not that I can really offer advice because we two eat mine within less than a fortnight.

My father did this sometimes but his recipe was SOLID as it was basically fruit glued together with eggs and butter.
There was nothing to crumble.

I want to do this too so I have no advice but watching with interest.