Christmas Crafting - Christmas Cake

Every year I make a Christmas cake, whether it's for family, friends or gifts.

This year I am making one especially for the local Toddler Group I'm involved with in the village.  As part of a Christmas themed session they are having a competition to guess the weight of the Christmas cake and I offered my baking services.

I use a tried and trusted recipe I came across several years ago on the BBC Good Food website called Simmer & Stir Christmas Cake. You can find the full recipe here.

It's the perfect recipe for me, as it doesn't need to be made weeks ahead.

The first part of the recipe requires you to bring the butter, sugar, dried fruit, zests, juice and brandy slowly to the boil, then simmer gently for 10 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat and cool for 30 minutes.

Whilst the mixture is cooling, you need to toast the nuts gently to brown them, then once they have cooled, chop roughly.

You then add these along with the eggs and ground almonds to the cooled fruit mixture, mixing well. Then sift in the flour, baking powder and spices, stirring gently until there are no traces of flour left.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth down evenly.

Bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes, then lower the temperature and bake for a further 1-1 1/4 hours. 

At this point your kitchen will smell amazing, with what I can only describe as the warm scent of Christmas. This makes me happy!

You'll know the cake is done when you insert a skewer and it comes out clean.  Then make holes all over the cake and pour on the extra brandy until it has all soaked in.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin and once it's cold remove from the tin and peel of the lining paper. Wrap it in baking parchment and then foil to keep it fresh, moist and all round lovely.

After this you can either serve it as it is or, like me, cover it with a layer of marzipan, then a layer of sugar paste. Decorate to your hearts content.

Here's one that I've decorated before.  I shall post a picture of this years finished cake soon.

What are your go to Christmas recipes? Have they been passed down on scraps of paper or googled on the World Wide Web?

Happy Christmas baking!

x

Our special place!

As I write this it's 11pm on a Friday night and I am sat in our Welsh holiday house.

Everyone else is tucked up in bed and I am here taking in my surroundings in the peace and quiet.

We set off straight after school and arrived about 9pm, got the kiddywinks to bed and unloaded the car.  I then pottered around for a while, putting things we had brought with us into the right rooms.

Now I'm sat thinking how lucky we are to have such a beautiful place. 

At times the whole process of buying this house and filling it with all the stuff we've needed has been quite overwhelming.  But now we are almost finished I'm able to step back and go "wow, we did this!".

I can't wait to be able to share Ferryside with everyone. It's such a special place.

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