Christmas cake

I did mine last week. Husband never rests easy until he knows his Christmas cake is made and safely stored away. I always soak the fruit in boiling water, drain after 20 to 30 mins, wrap in tea towels to remove the excess water, pick out any rogue stalks, then soak it in brandy ( about 5 tablespoons). The fruit soaked up all the brandy after a few hours this year so I didn't see much point in waiting and made the cake the same day. When cold, it had a feed of two more tablespoons of brandy.

Is there any benefit in leaving the fruit to stand longer? I thought standing time was just to allow for all the brandy to be absorbed.

Witzend reminded me that my MiL always made us a Christmas cake. We hated it, but didn’t want to say anything, as she was known to be quite volatile if upset!
Eventually, DD1 told her in all innocence that I always put it out for the birds! I had to think on my feet and told her it was the left over bits in July. Thankfully, she never made us another, but substituted a decent chocolate cake instead.

Made my Christmas cake today. As with others, I have been using my recipe for around 50 years, although nut allergies mean I now no longer include almonds in the mix.

There was brandy in the mix and more poured over after taking it from the oven and then more in the morning. it will then be wrapped in greaseproof paper and foil and tucked away in a tin until the weekend before Christmas when I will get it out and decorate it.

Soaked fruit overnight in apple juice and made mine today. I’ve not made one for years but now the house is full of grandchildren I decided they needed to make some wishes. Fingers crossed it will be edible.

Allegretto, I have not thought to use a thermometer on a cake. At what temperature did you take it out?

I will make a note for future. I cooked mine about 40 minutes longer than the recipe stated, but there seems to be a huge difference in cooking times for different recipes.

It took me nearly 45 minutes to bake a plum cake! I soaked dry fruits 2 weeks before and I am following my grandmom's recipe.

Mine is cooling in the kitchen and each time I pass it I take a big smell. Delicious!!

Nothing smells like Christmas cake does it?

I started making the Jane Grigson one from Gransnet (so far all I've done is put the fruit to soak) but I've realised it looks a LOT and the recipe doesn't say how big the tin should be...

Either I've had a mishap with converting from oz to grammes or it's going to make two Christmas cakes! Any advice please?

OnwardandUpward The Jane Grigson recipe on gransnet says to use a lined 8 inch cake tin. I usually make my own Christmas Pudding and have one left over from last year. Don't always make a Christmas cake depends if we are having visitors or not, quite often make a Chocolate log instead to have sometime over the holiday period.

Canadian Gran, I googled the temperature to take the cake out. I think it was 95C on the site I found. I had never tested using this method before and I think next time I will just use a skewer as I always did in the past.

Thanks Toscalily, somehow I missed that. I seem to have way too much fruit. My concentration has been awful today.

I hate shop bought Christmas Cake .. its flavourless and the icing is soft paste , no taste, and the marzipan is all sugar and no almonds. I have started to bake my own and really enjoyed the process, and it smells lovely !

I've made Jane Grigson's Christmas cake and none of my baking tins are larger than 8" as far as I know, OnwardandUpward.

Made my Christmas cake last week to Mary Berry's recipe. Poured 2 glasses of brandy and 1 of port over fruit to soak. Next day DH says' Aren't you going to feed it? '?

A couple of years ago I discovered Llddl did fruit soaked in brandy. It’s only available at Christmas time and is a really nice mixture of fruit. I found if I added up the amount of fruit required in Delia’s recipe and substituted it with this mixture I had a nicer tasting cake. I also put a lot of brandy in the mixture and dosed well after. Of course also added the extra ingredients stated by Delia.

For the last few years when I made one, I didn’t ice it. I brushed it with warm apricot jam, arranged a lot of nuts in a nice pattern on top, and brushed again to glaze. Then tied a tartan ribbon round it. I’m not remotely artistic but it always looked very nice.

Made mine this week after soaking the fruit in sherry a Mary Berry recipe. It actually soaked for 5 days due to circumstances but have used the recipe for about 10 years and it does not seem to make much difference and can be used after two days.
I don't actually like it but it gets thumbs up from the family. I'll feed it a couple of times with sherry before putting the marzipan on then I let it stand for at least a day before icing.

My daughter took over the responsibility of making the Christmas cake several years ago, fine by lazy me!
Today she has sent a photo of our five year old granddaughter: hair pinned up and apron on, serious face on, helping with the measuring and mixing for the first time (and licking the beaters!) ?
Can't wait to see it and taste it ?

I made my Christmas cake about a month ago. I soaked the fruit for a couple of hours only. I fed it liberally with Brandy when it was cool, and then wrapped it in greaseproof paper, followed by tinfoil. It’s in a dark cupboard waiting for me to marzipan and ice it. I’ve never bought a Christmas cake since I got married 47 years ago, always made one every year, but I do cheat by buying the marzipan and fondant icing now.