Christmas

Have Your Cake & Eat It… Just not until Christmas!

Last year I posted a blog on Stir Up Sunday with a recipe for Christmas Pudding. Click on this link ‘Christmas Pudding’ if you want to see it.

This Year I’m giving a recipe for Christmas Cake. You may think it’s a bit early but this cake tastes better for a bit of maturing. Put it this way. Last year we made two cakes. We started the second in the Summer holidays it was superb and still lovely and moist (something to do with the alcohol content me thinks!). In fact this year I’m wondering whether to do extra so we have a cake for next Christmas too!

This recipe will give a large 10″ cake and a smaller one. Or you could try two 8″ size tins. It depends on what sort of depth you want on your cake.

You can use whatever dried fruit you like in your cake. I put mainly vine fruits in mine with a little currants and angelica. If you want to push the boat out a few dried Morello cherries and cranberries make a luxurious addition.

Traditional Christmas Fruit Cake

800g Mixed dried fruit

300g nibbed almonds

200g glace cherries

100g crystalized ginger (roughly chopped)

Soak the above in 350ml of port, 350ml brandy and 1 bottle of Kreik overnight (or whatever alcohol you like)

4 medium eggs beaten

zest and juice of 2 oranges

200g melted butter

2 teaspoons of cinnamon and a good grating of nutmeg

1 teaspoon of all spice (pimento)

200g Muscavado sugar

2 tablespoons of black treacle

300g self raising flour

Method

Once your fruit has had it’s alcoholic bath simply put all the ingredients in a very big basin and give a very thorough mix.

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 4.

Grease and line your baking tins/moulds.

Fill your tins leaving at least 3cm gap from the top.

Bake in the oven for 2 hours 20 minutes to 2 hours 40 minutes.

If the top is browning a bit too quickly loosely cover with a little baking parchment.

Too check if the cake is done pierce the centre with a bamboo skewer. The cake is done when the skewer comes out virtually clean.

Leave the cakes to cool in the tin then take out.

Pierce the bottom of the cake with a skewer. Now you can feed your cake with whatever spirit you like! I find Brandy works the best but Whiskey also gives a great result. Simply spoon some alcohol over the cake and let it soak in. This can be repeated every 2 to 3 weeks or every week as it nears Christmas. Once the cake has had it’s first feed, wrap in greaseproof/baking paper then tin foil and then cling film. We keep ours in a cool box in a cool place.

We don’t ice our cake as we tend to enjoy it with a nice slab of vintage Cheddar and glass of wine, Port or Madeira but of course you can cover it with marzipan and icing of your choice or try glazing with some warmed apricot jam and decorating with nuts or glace fruit.

The only hard part I find about making this cake? Waiting until Christmas to eat it!

I wish I could have my cake and eat it now!

Crackers!

Well, the weather has turned chilly, there seems to be a pot of ‘Ome Made mulled wine permanently on the stove top & our Kids behaviour has gone mental which can only mean one thing. We’re on the last leg of the countdown to the second biggest celebration of the year. Yes the big day where we hear ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus sang at full belt by our Kids at 6.30am….

We finally came up with ideas on what to make for presents, so we’ve made……..now that would be telling! The Christmas cakes are done & mulling in lashings of brandy. The Christmas pudding (YEY! we don’t have to buy one this year!) is improving, snug in layers of greaseproof paper & tin foil. The mince-meat is jarred & ready to be used for umptious mince pies & because the Kids have been good, the Christmas faeries came & sprinkled their seasonal faerie dust & decorated our home.

We even came to an agreement on what to have for our festive dinner. Ok, so we were stood in the farm shop for around 1 hour umming & aahing whilst Mick the butcher fed us freshly cooked sausages, shouted ideas at us & served quite a few other customers. I bet Mick can’t wait for the day that we walk into his shop & know exactly what we want!

So rib of beef (I think….) is what we came to an agreement on. Piglets in blankets, Carpaccio, Christmas sausage & cranberry roll & Christmas glazed ham will all be gracing the table as well over the festive season. I’ve left the decision on vegetables to ‘Ome. No doubt there’ll be parsnips at some point…..I HATE PARSNIPS! & that is why ‘Ome will have got them & unfortunately our Kids love them so i’m outnumbered on this vegetable.

The fridge will be full of a variety of cheeses too. MissT loves Wenslydale & cranberry. Dj adores Camembert. CurlyE goes mad for any blue cheese (FREAK!) & Lil’mrM will try a bit of everything & decide which he likes best & then probably demand that we use it for ‘Macerwoni cheese!’.

I just hope we don’t end up with the yearly ‘Crackers-Cock-Up’. When ‘Ome is checking if there’s anything else I can think of we need I always say ‘don’t forget crackers’. Unfortunately, neither of us clarifies what we mean by crackers. So for the last few years we have nearly ended up pulling a Jacobs at the table or eating our cheeses with a BANG!

Wishing you all a

Merry Christmas & a Peaceful New Year

Kit x

Stir-Up-Sunday…

If you haven’t already made your Christmas Puddings then Sunday the 24th of November is the time to do it, the last Sunday before the start of Advent and traditionally known as Stir Up Sunday.

Here is a fail safe recipe for a lovely moist, boozy pudding!

Ingredients

600g mixed dried fruit and nuts. I use roughly 500g of mixed dried fruits (predominately raisins, sultanas and currants with a few cranberries, sour cherries and a good handful of glace cherries). For the nuts I usually use nibbed almonds.

500ml bottle of Guinness

300ml port

100ml brandy

200g shredded suet (proper beef is best, you can use vegetarian of course)

zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

2 medium cooking apples grated

freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

250g muscavado sugar

75g plain flour

3 medium eggs beaten

150g breadcrumbs

Method

Soak the fruit for at least 24 hours in the alcohol (if you don’t want to use alcohol then you could use tea and orange juice)

In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together. Get the whole family to give it a stir and make a wish at the same time (my wish is that the pudding turns out ok!)

Grease a large pudding bowl and a few smaller ones (ideal for giving away to friends, family and neighbours), pour the pudding mixture into the bowls leaving an inch from the top.

Cover the mixture with a circle of greaseproof paper. cover the bowl with tinfoil (with a pleat in it to allow for the pudding to expand) and then place in a large pan on a trivet with a folded strip of tin foil underneath to allow you to lift the pudding out. Pour water into the pan to come up 2/3 of the way up the pudding basin.

Put the pan on to boil. When boiling turn down to a simmer and cover the pan. A large pudding will take 2 1/2 to 3 hours to cook (test with a skewer, the skewer wants to come out clean). I usually take the pan off the heat but leave the pudding in the water for an hour just to make sure the pudding is evenly cooked through.

Lift the pudding out of the water and set aside to cool. Once cool I take the pudding out of the basin, wrap in greaseproof paper, then cling film and then tin foil. I then put in a spare cool box where it stays until the big day.

On the day you are eating having the pudding it can either be put back in the basin it was cooked in and boiled again for an hour to heat up or it can be microwaved in short bursts (a couple of minutes at a time leaving a minute in between).

To serve place the pudding on a heatproof plate. Pour a couple tablespoons of Brandy into a ladle and gently heat over a low flame. Once the Brandy starts to shimmer pour over the pudding and light with a match.

Remember to have a bucket of water and fire extinguisher on hand… just in case!

Merry Christmas!

P.S try slices of leftover pudding fried in butter for breakfast… Fantastic!

Holidays Are Coming… Holidays Are Coming…

The countdown to Christmas has begun & it’s only September!!!

Ok, it probably started around August time with us. That was when I first turned to ‘Ome & asked ‘What are we having for Christmas dinner then?’. His face was a picture!

I then pointed out the fact that before we realize, it will be 4 weeks before the Birthday celebrations & we won’t have even started making the presents, the Birthday pudding will be nonexistent (like last year…we had to, umm, BUY ONE! AAAArrrghhh!) & we’ll still be having debates, arguments & bottom lips stuck out over what we’re having for dinner.

So here we go. ‘Ome wants wild boar, MissT wants ham, Dj wants turkey. CurleyE wants duck wraps & Lil’MrM wants ‘Macerwoni cheeeese!’. I want a holiday & a large mug full of ‘Ome mulled wine.

‘Presents’ I ask ‘What are we doing for presents?’ cue an hour long reminisce about all the stuff we’ve made over the years & how yummy the stuff was….the ‘Ome Made rum soaked dried morello cherries were a particular favourite as was the ‘Ome Made lime pickle & mango chutney.

So, are we any closer to a happy medium that pleases everyone for Christmas dinner? Nope!

Did we have any new ideas for presents? Nuh-uh!

So in October when the adverts start on television for the latest expensive toys, games & gadgets & the shops are putting up their decorations, we’ll be sat there moaning that Christmas is light years away & will they stop making this special time of year into a time of greed & selfishness. It should be a time for celebrating the birth of Jesus, goodwill to all, giving gifts with thought, mulling your wine & pulling your crackers.

Then we’ll realize that ‘S***!, we haven’t even started yet…..Buy a pudding QUICK!’

Kit x