Christmas (Christian Winter Festive Event) Cake

 

Hello there!  Well, it's October 23rd and my first Christmas cake of the year is in the oven (with two days to spare by my target!).  Hurrah! Obviously I am calling this a Christmas Cake as I celebrate Christmas, but it's also a damn good general heavy fruit cake experience - no matter what your religious inclinations are.  

For the last couple of years I have used Mary Berry's Christmas Cake recipe and I love it - I can't see me changing it any time soon.  You can find it here on Mary's own website and it is lovely and straight forward.  For the first time this year I am making two cakes, one round and one square so today's weighing out ventures were more complex than normal as I wanted to weigh them out at the same time.  To handle this I decided to get a bit geeky and obsessed....

 I had planned everything in advance, of course and has done a Tesco Groceries order just for the occasion which arrived at 0925 this morning so everything I already had was out on the counter before that came.  

I decided to weigh out the ingredients into boxes, two boxes for each cake.  Box number one is all of the fruit, the peel and the brandy.  Doesn't it look lovely! The only tweak I make to Mary's recipe here is that I add some hot water with the brandy to open up the fruit a bit more and I added the peel here too.  

Box (or in this case bowl) number two is everything else, with the exception of the eggs which I added slowly as I had written that down last year... I have no idea why, sadly.  

If you are an obsessive lump remover I would also advise adding the almonds afterwards as I was getting a bit worried about the lumps... idiot!

Adding the eggs slowly worked a treat and it doesn't take lone to come together.

Now that all of the 'cake' ingredients are in together it's time to add the fruit box.  I did not look like this was all going to fit in my mixer at once, but it did - just!  If your mixer has a lid I stronly advise using that!

Once it's all nicely combined it's ready to go in the tin! 

After last years tears over lining the tin (seriously) I have been playing with some new ideas for making this easier and I think I have cracked it...

Tin lining kit:

• pen
• scissors
• grease proof paper
• string
• spray butter or oil
• cake tin

Making the lining is the easy bit!  Draw round the bottom of the tin and cut out the shape about 1cm in from the line from doubled ove grease proof so you have two shapes.  Spray the inside of the tin with oil or butter and smooth one shape in to the bottom of the tin, the spray more and add the second layer.  See how it sticks and sits smoothly?  This is amazing!!  For the outsides, cut a long bit of paper big enough to go around the tin and then a wee bit extra, fold in in half so it's still long, but not as deep.  Spray it inside a bit to stick the two sides together.  Do this again for the outside protective layer.  Now that you have two 'cuffs' spray one a bit and stick it to the inside of the tin, spraying and sticking as you go around.  Do similar on the outside of the tin and tie with some string.  Easy. No jumping spirals of paper, no tears and no needing my husband to rescue me!

Time to plonk the mixture in the tin now, and smooth it over.  You don't need to be gentle with this mix as there is very little air in it anyway.   Once it's smooth round the edges make a wee recess in the centre, maybe about as deep as from the tip of your pinkie to the first knuckle. This is a genius trip for making the top raise evenly.  If you put it in the oven flat topped the centre will rise more and give you a mountain cake - this prevents that.  And that't it really... fling it in the over as Mary tell us to and then tidy up (boo) and do something amusing for the next five hours...

So there we are, cake!  It's in the oven and it smells glorious!  And even better cake two is all measured out, the cake tin is ready, the mixer is clean and ready to go again and I get to lick more treacle from the spoon later on tonight. Whoo!

What's your Christmas cake tradition, do you have a favourite tin, recipe or any magic tricks?  If so please do share them in the comments or send me a photo on Instagram of your cake in action, I'm karenhtodd over there, come say hi!

Thanks for reading... decorating will be happening in December, meanwhile I'll feeding it with brandy!

Happy Birthday, Husband

This is another post I wrote at the start of the year and never published.   Well, I have now!  Happy Belated Birthday Babe.

Sunday: As previously mentioned in my February Specials ramble it is Brian's birthday this week and to that end I have been planning the making of his birthday cake.  I love making cakes and any excuse to make a treat for someone I love is good with me!  

When asked for ideas on what kind of cake he wanted the soon to be Birthday Boy was not slow at all in requesting carrot cake... so that is what he is getting!  I have already planned far enough in advance to have emailed Clementine and asked for extra carrots in this weeks produce box and the rest of the shopping will be done tomorrow and then Tuesday will be the day of the big bake.  Wednesday is Birthday!

Monday:  The produce box has arrived!  And not only does it contain the carrots as requested but a chilli for Brian too as the ladies in the shop know that he loves them.  Thanks!

Tuesday:  So, it is cake making day.  I have assembled my ingredients, broken an egg in error and it's time to get cracking.  The recipe I am using is a Hairy Bikers one as I love them and this has been described as a lighter than your average carrot cake, which sounds good to me.  It also comes with the suggestion of orange cream cheese frosting which sounds delicious!  

The recipe:  

200g/7oz self-raising flour
75g/3oz sultanas
75g/3oz pecans, broken into rough pieces
1 large orange zest only
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ whole nutmeg, finely grated (I estimated this to be about half a tea spoon full as I had grated nutmeg, not whole)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch fine sea salt
3 free-range eggs
175ml/6fl oz sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
175g/6oz soft light brown sugar
200g/7oz carrots, grated
100g/3½oz icing sugar
100g/3½oz unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp fresh orange juice
200g/7oz full-fat cream cheese

And the method:

Preheat the oven to 160C/320F/Gas 4.  Grease two seven inch round tins and leave them to the side.   Combine the flour, sultanas, pecans, half of the orange zest, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl .  in the mixer (if you have one) cbat the eggs until smooth and add the sunflower oil and sugar and whisk until well combined.  To this mixture add the flour mix slowly and let to combine.  Then add the carrots.   

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tins and smooth the surfaces. Bake in the centre of the oven for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is well risen and feels springy to the touch. 

Remove the cake from the oven and set aside to cool in the tin for five minutes. Remove the cake from the tin and set aside to cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and add the butter and orange juice. Beat together with a large wooden spoon until light and creamy. Add the cream cheese and the rest of the orange zest and beat until smooth. Cover and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or until firm enough to spread.

Spread the icing over the cake and sprinkle with extra pecans (I skipped this bit as I had other plans). And you're done!

Remember I said I had other plans instea dof the pecans?  Well, instead of pecans I added  a dog, a fire pit, a chickem, a sword, an axe and a Viking.  As you do...

So, Happy Birthday Brian.  Happy cake.

Burns Day Food Ideas

Em... better late than never?  I half wrote this and it got lost in my brain for a while and I just don't want to waste it... So!  Burns day food ideas.  I'm going to keep this simple, things to do with haggis and how to make shortbread.


Haggis is still on offer in the shops up here in Scotland so it's still fair game to eat far too much of it in my book!  Haggis is a funny beast that lots of folk don't like because they've only ever eaten it with horrid mash and wet turnip, and then there are the folk who just don't like the idea of it.  I am not one of them - I love the stuff.

Shortbread is not hard to make, I promise.  It doesn't have to be hard anyway.  This is one of those things that my Gran Betty can just make happen like magic and my Mum has he same skill.  Maybe one day I'll get there, but I promise it's not hard!  I also think this is the only recipie that I have committed to momory in ounces as it's so easy to remember!

Ingredients:

2oz (55g)  room temperature butter
4oz (125g) butter
6oz (180g) plain flour

And the rest is pretty easy too!

Preheat the oven to 190 deg C and beat the butter and sugar toegther till smooth.  Make sure it's really smooth, no short cuts here!  Stir in the flour little by little and you will end up with a smooth paste. Roll out on a floured board till it's about 1cm thick.  Now shape it however you want to!  Cut it into fingers, cut it into shapes with a cutter, keep it whole in a round and press it with a shortbread brand... use your imagination!  Bake it in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes (if you do a round it will need more time).  When it is baked and golden brown remove from the oven, place on a cooking rack and dust with castor sugar immediately.  Leave till it's cook and enjoy.  Or share.  But mainly enjoy.

And there we are, better late than never!  Yeah?  I promise the next Celebration will be up in time for planning (as I'm away to write it very soon indeed!).

Glossary

I thought I'd take a moment to make a record of my logic so that it makes sense to all of us, so here we are. I have split my content into three sections so I think it all makes sense. 

The Meals, the backbone of eating and how we structure our eats.  In our house the three main meals generally increase in size as the day wears on, but sometimes the larger meal is eaten around mid-day if we are feeling extravagant with time or I am in an odd mood.  Supper is not a normal meal for us, but sometimes it happens to be snack food that is too posh or joy inducing to be called a snack.  

The Extras are the things that we don't all do every day, but if we could we'd do a lot more of!  Celebration food is things that are made for special occasions - Christmas cake, Sentinel cake and good old fashioned birthday cake.  Cuppa covers anything to serve with a cuppa or an afternoon tea that replaces a shop bought biscuit or fancy.  Treats are just those, I was going to call this 'puddings' but I want them to be special, and although we don't have pudding a lot, we love a treat.  

 The features are the things that will pop up on a regular basis.  Manifesto for any essays or new intentions I have in mind, top five for my favourite things we've eaten, cooked. made, or seen and then seasonal specials, the monthly run down of what we're eating this month, what to look out for and any odd seasonal things I've found that I have no idea what to do with... And finally, hosting - what we've sat down to eat with friends, any menu ideas I've had and maybe even an invite to my fictional dinner parties.  

I solemnly swear that everything will be labelled, everything will be searchable and one day there might even be some form of index...

And that's it, I hope!