The FastDay Forum

I've just today ordered the ingredients for mine. I use a Jane Asher recipe which I got from the TV Times magazine many years so. I will also make some for presents but not using this recipe - it's rather extravagant what with containing Drambuie and dried mango etc. I've recently enjoyed eating a very small cake which had been maturing in the cupboard since last summer - absolutely delicious!

I've just today ordered the ingredients for mine. I use a Jane Asher recipe which I got from the TV Times magazine many years so...containing Drambuie and dried mango etc. ..

@Winsome, I've been tearing up the Google searches looking for this recipe - are there any more hints, please? Does it use typical vine fruit or other more tropical/exotic dried fruit, please?

Oooooh that creole one looks fabulous. I normally presoak all my fruit/nuts in rum, often for weeks, before I get around to making the cake. The biggest problem with this is I normally nick the glace cherries, and then have to buy more to add to the soaking mixture. [Do you know how delicious rum soaked glace cherries are? Very delicious!]

The past couple of years I haven't made a cake though. I'm the biggest fan in our family (and majority of my friends aren't fans of fruit cakes either) so I wind up eating most of it - and my MIL and SIL both make cakes too, and we normally travel to them over the festive season, so it feels a bit decadent to have one at home.

Marzipan is always hard to track down in Australia too. I've had to make it myself a couple of years.

Last year I made a ten inch Christmas cake and it was gone by New Year! I use an old family recipe which I have added to over the years, mainly by the addition of alcohol! I always make mine in the last week in October and feed it weekly with a mixture of glycerine and Cointreau. Yum! Sometimes I decorate with fondant icing but usually go for the 'rough cast concrete' snow scene, using royal icing. The same old decorations come out every year and my children, now all in their forties, complain bitterly if I try to introduce anything new! Better go and check the store cupboard!

Another one here who won't be making one. Although I do like the cake, I don't like marzipan (bleugggh) or icing; hub doesn't like anything like that - no pince mies, no cake, no chocs, apart from a dark Moser Roth. I may buy a slice of fruit cake though!
I might be called upon to make a small pud, but in all honesty, for what you have to buy, it's easier to buy one of those as well. I do enough cooking!

I always make my Christmas cake in October. I love having one less thing to fuss about in December. I use Delia Smith's recipe and it is fabulous. I love fruitcake. I can eat it because I am going to fast both before and after Christmas. My husband has his birthday at the end of December, so the Christmas cake doubles as his birthday cake! Buying the ingredients just now. Will bake it soonish.

For years I made 2 Christmas cakes in October one for us and one for Mum and Dad who are both gone now, the family are up and away . My DH does not like fruit cake or marzipan. We have also found that because we live so far out in the country that the flood of visitors we used to get over the festive season has dried up as they can't drink and drive. It finally hit me that I was the only one eating the cake so I have not made one for the last 5 years . I do miss the lovely smell in the house and the pleasure I got out of decorating it but a whole Christmas cake is a H---l of a lot of calories and they do shout very very loudly from the cupboard

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This is our Christmas cake from last year. We always have a 'Nativity Scene' Over the years various interlopers have become part of the scene. We like the curiously sized livestock. Until I bought the central figures from Poundland a few years ago the little santa used to take the part of baby Jesus. In fact last year's cake was less crowded than usual as the 'children' are all grown up now and their attention span is not what it was!

Wow! Some great ideas, thanks for sharing. Winsome, I would like to try that recipe too. I love Jane Asher, have done ever since I was very young. Lil, that cake looks very happy. Love it, thanks for sharing. I think that perhaps we could make one cake and send slices around the country to each other! No marzipan nor icing for Penny though thanks

My neighbour made us a Xmas cake a couple of years ago and she made 3 cat figurines out of icing which were based on 3 of our cats which was a really sweet touch. Unfortunately she hadn't secured cake to board with any jam so we nearly had a mishap with it before we got started. It was yummy and I ate far too much of it!

Cake making of any description is not my forte although I do love a good fruit cake. I'm like PFT though in that I can't stand marzipan or icing so will just buy a decent fruit slab . Not keen on Christmas pud either to be honest, usually have quite a light, cold dessert after our Christmas dinner.

[janeg]

*cough* I'll have any excess marzipan *cough*
Non Diving Daughter has started her cake- fruit soaking in mucho booze.
Mine is scheduled for Friday...

Just a thought.... If you are not a marzipan and icing kind of person, try Delia's Dundee cake. It's lighter than a traditional Christmas cake and we have it every Christmas ! Beginning to feel hungry now ...

I am a bakery chef....Last year Christmas I've prepared Dark chocolate Santa and white chocolate Santa along with his chariot.. people loved it and we had a good sale at Christmas .