Has everyone already made their Christmas cake?

I can remember I'd enjoy making Delia Smith's Christmas cake for several years, I have all her books including her Xmas ones. However, as it has become clear, all the younger members of the family are dried fruit dodgers, they like none of it! Christmas cake, pudding or mince pies represents food of the devil to their taste buds So I gave up the ghost a while ago. Even if we buy a Christmas cake, me and other half, will have a slice or two, and forget about it, and there it languishes in the tin most of the year. We both have acquired a taste for Stollen so maybe I won't even buy a traditional Christmas cake this year, although it does represent the taste of Christmas past, so much of the whole Christmas package is wrapped up in nostalgia.

Stir up Sunday 23rd November in 2025.

I always make my Christmas cake (Delia’s recipe) at the end of August. Pudding on Stir up Sunday. I also make what we call a chocolate shed for family members who don’t eat dried fruit.

I have one made last December in the cupboard and am about to make its replacement.

No, but I have bought one.

I made mine with my two little GDs last week. They absolutely love weighing and mixing the ingredients using an oversized bowl inherited from my mother. It means that they can use their well scrubbed hands to mix it! I usually buy the ready rolled fondant icing and marzipan and then allow them to decorate it as they wish. I used to spend ages deciding how to decorate before they were old enough to ‘help’ but now I just hand them various shape cutters, decorations etc. For obvious reasons no one ever eats the icing but the cake is always delicious.

Flippinheck

I have never made a Christmas cake or a Christmas pudding as no one in my family likes very rich fruit cakes. I might buy one of M&S’s Dundee cakes and I will use my much missed SIL’s recipe to make a clootie dumpling for New year.

Same here, I am the only one in the family who likes Christmas cake, mince pies or Christmas pudding, I haven’t made any of these for 60 years.

karmalady
If you and your DDs make Christmas cakes, you’ll have a lot of cake this year!
I’ve made Delia’s classic many times, and we’ve made the Creole cake and the last-minute one - all delicious. I’ve also made small cakes in tin cans to donate to a Christmas Fair. That would probably be a better size for us now and it’s not worth the effort any more.

For the past few years I’ve gone to the cake stall at the Christmas Fair myself. The cakes are made by 2 ladies and are absolutely delicious, available in a choice of sizes, and a fraction of the cost it would take me to make it. Sorted.

I used to make a really good Christmas cake but I ended up eating most if it. I love it, but that’s not good for me. DH didn’t eat it, so all the more for me. Then my daughter made it, using my square tin, and gave me a quarter. Her family don’t eat it either so she has stopped as well. Now I buy a small slab from Aldi, just for a treat.

DH loved mince pies but I never had any success with making them and nothing could beat his mother’s. Then he had to give up eating them for health reasons. I hate them anyway.
Why is it that every event in December has to offer mince pies?

We're preparing for stir up Sunday in our house. Luckily we have a few fans of Christmas cake and pudding in the family. I used to make Delia Smith's whisky Dundee cake which was also very good and doesn't need icing etc but now we have the GC's it's nice to decorate a cake.

Maggiemaybe

When it comes to boozy cakes, it’d be hard to beat Delia’s Creole recipe, which I use every year. It doesn’t need maturing, so I usually start it a month before. I mix and match the booze, depending on what I need to use up.

I've made something similar, a recipe from someone who came to give a talk to our group once years ago.

I think it was called Jamaican Black Cake. The fruits are chopped as well as soaked in rum for some time.

No, I haven't made one this year (yet)
M&S?

I still have a lovely Guinness Christmas cake recipe but haven’t made one for many years.

Ours were madex3 weeks ago. 3 cakes in fact, one for me and DH, one for DS and his family and a further square one which will be cut in half prior to decorating and then given as a gift to two friends at the appropriate time. Weekly feeding with brandy between now and just before Christmas when they will all be decorated. Before that I gave grandsons 5th birthday cake to make!

Fartooold

I have made mine but dropped it when I took it out of the oven!!! Have squashed it together and poured sherry over it. It doesn’t look too bad but needs marzipan.

I know the feeling. I had a similar accident with a simnel cake some years ago. i had a junior moment and tipped the cake out of the tin before it had cooled, I piled the cooked cake, all back into a straight sided casserole dish the same size as the tin and then iced the top. and cut the slices while it was still in the casserole

I will be making mine a week or so before Christmas as it is a whisky Dundee fruit cake, and will dry out if made too soon.

I have made more traditional rich fruit cakes in the past and it has been around now when I’ve made them, so, no, you haven’t left it too late to make yours, CanadianGran.

Fartooold

I have made mine but dropped it when I took it out of the oven!!! Have squashed it together and poured sherry over it. It doesn’t look too bad but needs marzipan.

Pour some brandy over it, wrap it ip tightly in baking paper then tinfoil, then in a tin.
By the time it needs marzipanning, it might have stuck together 🤞

I have the urge to make one now, but not today.

What a lovely scent of baking in my house still lasting and the Delia cake has turned out wonderfully. I prepped in the old way, with a doubled band of brown paper around and some greaseproof on top. I did check the oven temperature and it was a perfect 140 degrees. Had to check because I rarely use the big oven

I am not going to ice it, that amount of sugar is a step too far but I will be putting the decadent marzipan on

I won`t be making pudding or mincemeat

ExDancer

When IS stir-up Sunday Whitewave? For some reason I thought it was in September. Anyway I made mine yesterday but my mixer broke half way through.
It's turned out well all the same.

Last Sunday in November😊

I daren't ask about the rather old home-made pudding in the cupboard again .....

Sorry, not very old - quite mature.

Stir up sunday is when puddings were traditionally made

justwokeup I don`t worry about the cost of making it, everything in the cake is organic and it would cost an awful lot of money to buy. Making it is far cheaper

Allira

Sorry, not very old - quite mature.

Like us? 😜

Well, not as old as me 😁
But getting on a bit.

I started making christmas cakes before I was married about 60 years ago, then a couple of years ago I used loaf size tins as there's only myself and 2 daughters like them,,,

Yes.

Cake is Mary Berry plus extra cherries.

Pudding is Nigella plus extra nuts. And brandy and port used to soak fruit instead of sherry.