I've made my C*******s Cake !!

Can your neighbour's hen come and live with me?

Should be a great cake! well done.

Well done you I shan't be far behind you. I like to give my cake plenty of time to mature and be 'fed'. I love the idea of a random egg laying.

Actually, you could come and live with me, then you could make mine!

Oh well done! It will be almost pickled by Christmas if you feed it weekly!

I will make mine in October half term..as I have done for more years than I like to remember even though I am no longer bound by term dates!!

Yes, half-term, and puddings this year too as I usually make enough for the year after as well.

I will have to get the DGD's to come and stir!

I do mine October half term too! And the puds - but they're bi-annual, my MiL's recipe was from her mother who was cook in a big house. The recipe has been divided by eight but it still makes six large puddings. One for C*******s, one for Easter and one eaten in slices with ices cream over the summer. There's so much booze in the mix it'd keep for ever.

I am embarrassed to say that I bought some small cracker gifts on line yesterday. I happened to have one idea and it went from there.

When the DC were young' in the days of being really, really broke, I used to buy my C*******s cards and stocking fillers in the January sales!

I still do Nfk! Cards, gift wrap and tags.

I did buy some lovely cards in Jan sales one year and found them the following January! They got used eventually!

I'm an October half term Christmas cake maker as well. I plan to search for a recipe that uses less/no sugar this year. I'd welcome suggestions if anyone has made such a cake, successfully.

I bought my sisters July birthday gift in April, having spotted it at a craft stall. As for C*s gifts, I've started to buy them if and when I spot something special for a special person. This means I have to keep a list, or I forget and double buy??. Hopeless, I'm becoming my grannie, or my mother

It's only once a year Iam64

However, I saw a recipe with stewed apple (plus sugar, but not so much) and it moistens the cake as well.
I think it was one by Tamasin Day Lewis.

Way back in the 60's I went to see my Nana. I remember it being late spring/early summer. I was offered some C*******s cake and of course said 'Yes please'. She asked if I would like 'This years, last years, or the year before'. I chose the latest one but no doubt the oldest specimen would have been equally good. She always fed them well.
She was also a great lover of rum sauce with 'that' pud and always checked the colour to see if it was good enough. A pale colour and it needed more rum. After her death my mother took over the job until she died and guess who does the job now (and I don't let her high standards down). A job for life it seems !

I make my cake in October too ( but not half term it's too busy for me then.)
Love unwrapping and feeding it brandy.

I used to spend most of the September term collecting non perishable C*******s food items, adding a few to my weekly shop each week so it wouldn't break the bank. All the pudding and cake ingredients and so on, jellies, blancemanges, packets of stuffing mix, cranberry sauce, things like that.
A younger colleague asked me one year how many packets of marzipan she would need to cover her cake. I said, 'oh about 10 or 12'. 'TEN OR TWELVE?????' she asked, 'but that sounds way too much!'
'Well no, not really', I said, 'because what happens is, I buy two packs and then eat them so I have to buy 2 more. Then I eat them, so I have to buy 2 more. And this goes on till a week before C*******s when I panic and actually put the bloody stuff on the cake as soon as I get back from the supermarket to stop me eating it again.'

I have bought some of my presents already, vintage games for me and my son to play, Buckaroo, Battleships, Snakes and Ladders, Whack Attack etc. Hopefully it will be fun. I also bought, last night, a record of Pinky and Perky Christmas Songs! Such memories, I will be in tears listening to it. Only problem is, I have no turntable, as yet!

Iam - I generally soak the fruit in something tasty the day before I make a fruit cake. Last time I used some mature sloe gin (we have a surplus at present) diluted with an equal amount of hot water and it really brought out the sweetness of the fruit. So I halved the brown sugar. It worked really well, so it's worth experimenting with the booze! Not sure if it does much for the calorie content - or health benefits. But I can at least say it's low sugar!

Thanks NfkDumpling. I usually soak the fruit in sherry, brandy or any cheap alcohol brought back as gifts from foreign shores (usually by the children). It's a good idea to halve the sugar and as you've done this, it clearly doesn't make problems with the cake. I know it's only once a year but I do love fruit cake but I'm one of the many who had the Awful Warning about pre diabetes. I don't wish to minimise either physical or mental health problems but I'm beginning to feel we're all transgender pre diabetics these days

I suspose a sweet sherry would work as well. There's probably just as much sugar in a different form - but more flavour.