Christmas cakes

My first Christmas away from a UK family so lets do it right. What do we need? A real Christmas cake, a Christmas pudding, Christmas dinner, crackers, tinsel, Christmas cards.. First the baking.

As predicted after baking fruitcake, Christmas cake was a drama. But fun. I bought decorations when in Edinburgh in November and hoarded dried fruit, putting the sherry, sultanas and glacé cherries out of reach of even Óli. I needed a set of steps to reach them. Mum gave me her recipe and we got hold of one from Delia online. We made two cakes.. Mum´s real Christmas cake with lots of halved cherries and Delia´s rich traditional cake which of course can´t beat Mum´s one. But being part of the real cultural experience I was told we had to have the traditional as well as the Mum version. I am writing this in March and .. well.. all the Mum cake disappeared before New Year but we have still got a small wedge of the Delia one wrapped in foil in the cupboard. Mum, can I give away the recipe?





For once it really is worth doing the cooking show thing of measuring everything into little bowls and placing them in the order of appearance in front of you. Tick each one off on the list. Prevents 4 times the amount of sultanas (so no more fruit cakes until next foreign trip and no Christmas pudding) and also prevents subtle theft of cherries to the detriment of the cake. More cherries in the cake the better, less cherries directly into Óli the better. Follow the secret recipe (is it secret Mum?) and place in a round tin, 8" diameter. Put brown paper or baking parchment around it and make a paper lid to stop it burning. Cook for about 3 hours. Feed with sherry once per week at least. Then, cover with marzipan rolled to a sensible thickness, less than 1cm perhaps. Make royal icing and forget to include gelatine and create a snowscene on your cake. Make everything nice and spiky. Break teeth on hard icing but enjoy cake.