Easy christmas cake

I always use my mother in law's recipe which I've used for the last 50 years. It's really simple, mixed dried fruit, cherries, eggs, sugar, butter and flour. I made it last weekend so it's got plenty of time to mature with regular doses of amaretto!

I used to make a really delicious Marguerite Patten cake when young and ambitious but now I make an Australian Woman’s Weekly boiled fruit cake and add whatever I want to it - cherries, blueberries, cranberries, nuts, anything really, and it doesn’t really need to mature for weeks. It’s delicious and very, VERY easy. PM me if you want the recipe.

vampirequeen you've just reminded me that was what I did last year and no one noticed! Sorted

vampirequeen

Buy a supermarket fruit cake. Unwrap. Prick it and sprinkle with brandy. Wrap in greaseproof paper and seal in tin. Repeat every two weeks until ready to ice. Pass off as your own boozy Christmas cake.

I was thinking of doing that with the shop bought Christmas pudding that got forgotten last year. The expiry date is a few weeks before the big day so should be fine especially with added alcohol. I rarely drink alcohol but do like it in food and puds.

Chewbacca: I didn’t spot the vowel replacement and thought you had lots of opinions on Christmas pudding!

Sophiasnanna Jo Wheatley who won bake off several years ago has one on her website where she cooks the peel element in water and then purées it to get the flavour without the texture. I’ve never tried it as I like peel but it might be a way around it.

I have a great recipe given to me by a R.A.F cook, simple and tasty.vampirequeen i like your style.

Any rich fruitcake recipe should work. I don't like currants and rarely buy raisins, so last year my cake had sultanas, cherries, cranberries and candied pineapple to the weight of dried fruit in the recipe. No peel! Poured too much brandy in to the bowl for the fruit to soak up, so had to wait 3 or four days before I could bake it. It was delicious.

Kamiso

Chewbacca: I didn’t spot the vowel replacement and thought you had lots of opinions on Christmas pudding!

Kamiso, can't stand the damned things! I've had the same Heston Blumenthal Hidden Orange pudding in the back of my cupboard for 6 years!

Haven't made or bought a Christmas cake for years. Think by the time meal was over no one was interested. Always sat about in a tin for months. Is a Christmas cake supposed to represent using up all the stores of food heralding in a new season to come? I've completely forgotten why we have such a rich cake at Christmas.

I'm another traditionalist. Delia Christmas cake recipe, made at half term when I'd have been off work and at home when the children were young.
Last year I ordered a cake from Betty's in Harrogate. It was half the size of the one I usually make, probably a Good Thing as it meant we couldn't continue eating cake till mid February. But, it really wasn't as good as a home made cake. And, I missed the weighing out, soaking on whatever sherry I could find in the cupboard.
Who knows about this year. Our area may well be tier 3 into perpetuity unless the government changes its approach. Two of us will be eating the cake till Easter (is that all bad....)

Vampirequeen I love that suggestion I think I’ll do that this year.

My family don't like Christmas cake. So I'm not making one. How easy is that.

I look forward to doing the traditional Christmas baking and really, the cake’s dead easy to make. Lining the tin’s the only faffy bit. But it does work out a lot dearer than a bought one.

I love Delia’s Creole Christmas Cake recipe - you can adapt all the fruit and, in particular, the booze to use whatever you’ve got. It’s very rich though, and the rest of the family prefer a light one. So this year I’m going to try Delia’s last minute recipe, using homemade mincemeat. And drop them off a small one each, as we’re not likely to be celebrating all together.

I’ve made my own candied peel years ago and it was so much better than the usual stuff. I might even try it again this year seeing as I’ve more time on my hands.

I have made Mary Berry’s White Christmas cake for the last two years and it is so tasty and keeps wonderfully moist for ages. You will find it on the internet, sorry I don’t have the link.

Anyone seen a recipe for a small (not tiny, say 7" tin) Christmas cake? I'm not good at working out proportions of ingredients butter, eggs etc.
I didn't discover shop-bought marzipan till years after everybody else ? and that was a real time-saver. Then just rough up the icing with a knife and stick a candle on the top now that the DD have made off with the robin, the pillar box, the log, the several bent fir trees, the Father Christmas, the bit of broken handbag mirror, the penguin... with which they lovingly decorated the cake for many years.

I recently made a mary berry cake, it was the easiest ever. Soaked the fruit in brandy and then it was all in one bowl. Her cake book gives a very good chart for ingedients in all sizes. I made a 6" cake, which reminds me, I want to feed it a bit more brandy today

Jamaican Black cake is good, I'll try to link the Waitrose recipe which is an easier adaptation. If not, it's easy to find.

www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/c/caribbean-black-cake.html

Iam64, I was also disappointed in Bettys, hence me making a small cake this year. I bought a bit of marzipan topping and won`t ice it as there is only me. A tiny bit at a time will see me through the whole winter

I'm making one in a loaf tin. Not too big and easy to slice. I just like the smell of one cooking It reminds me of home.

My husband one year to make Christmas Cakes for everyone (he had never made a cake or anything much in his life). It cost an absolute fortune, he made trial cakes then decide mixing was such hard work so purchased a food mixer. By the time they were decorated (left to me to do) decorations bought etc etc plus mucking the kitchen out when he had finished I banned him from ever doing it again and explained that’s what Marks and Spencer are for.

I soak sultanas, glace cherries and walnuts in apple juice for a few days, drain them, and stir into a basic sponge mix. It works well cooked in a round tin, or in loaf tins.

I’ve started to make a tea loaf, bara brith, a few days before and it is always moist, normally my Christmas cakes have been dry. Nobody complains..

I use a recipe that was in an Asda magazine years ago and found it the best . I leave out the peel etc as I dont like it and it makes no difference to the cake. I have all the ingredients now and I will make it next week when I have finished pickling my onions. The only trouble with the cake this year is that my grandchildren won't be able to stir it and make their Christmas wish.

Australian boiled cake is really easy and you could add more alcohol in the first stage of you wished, instead of tea or milk.

www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipes/favourite-boiled-fruit-cake-14529