Who is making for Christmas?

[Mo]

Surely that is too pretty to cut. You can't eat it.

[tosca100]

Made mincemeat and two cakes (recipe too much for the tin) but have had to compromise as I can't get currants. So have made up with dried cranberries, extra cherries and some of my home dried figs, with walnuts as I have so many. And a few prunes.

Smells nice, especially the mincemeat as I used a Mary Berry recipe to base it on and it has a lot of brandy in it!

[manda]

Cake looks fantastic Lynne

We are making Elderflower Champagne (as it's Spring here) ...going to check it today to see if it's starting to ferment and then it can be bottled

[mrs boodles]

That looks a yummy cake Lyn, I do like Christmas cake. Haven`t had stollen for years and years Hedgehugger but if I remember rightly it was rather nice. Might treat myself to a little one, you can get mini stollens in L..dls or Ald.. I think which would be better than a large one .

[HedgeHugger]

That cake's pretty frilly, did it take long to do?

L|dl was where I bought my first ever Stollen (20+ years ago now, cripes!) and have had at least one, every year since. I do think the quality is starting to drop though :(
Home baking is more fun anyway

[bmpsands]

I've made three of the four cakes that I'm responsible for. Cut the first one to make sure it was OK because it is to be sliced for our fundraiser tomorrow night. With the remaining ones I need some help. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO FEED THEM? I've tried pricking holes and floating brandy over the top (bit too boozy), pricking holes and carefully adding small amounts of brandy (too fiddly) and leaving the whole thing teetotal (bit too dry in both senses of the word).

My pastry is good - my mincemeat is rubbish so I've bought some from the big orange van man. Puddings come from a former neighbour who has a back garden business selling pickles mostly, but he also makes puddings and they're amazing.

On Sunday, d.v., I'm going on the pre-(late December festival word that we don't mention except on this strand perhaps) meat run. The turkey crown we got last year would have fed the whole hamlet so I'm hoping they have something smaller this year. Heaven knows what they feed those birds on.

[HedgeHugger]

I've always wrapped the cake in foil, pricked it all over (quite deeply) sloshed whatever booze over the top, wrapped back up again and put in a tin. Then repeat every week, pricking and sloshing, whenever I remember, until xmas.

[Mercedes]

My cake did take quite a long time to decorate yes HedgeHugger. The frill is just flowerpaste cut out with something called a garrett friller and you just use a cocktail stick to frill the edges, but it dries so hard it's not really very nice to eat, just looks pretty

I only feed my cakes every 2wks and I use a cocktail stick and use a dropper bottle to feed some Amaretto into the top of my cake, then turn it over and do the same to the bottom. You should really cover the cake in a couple of layers of baking parchment before you put foil on it as apparently the alcohol in the cake can react with foil.

[stace]

I always start with good intentions, being home all the time i should really get my ass in gear. But what with one thing and another never seem to get any homemade things done. I do try to do the sausage rolls though, its only me that likes xmas cake. And the mince pies are from sainsbury's they are my fav. I am so lazy

[Mo]

I sometimes make a couple of mince pies to use up pastry when I'm making a pie during the year. But my pastry is for everyday, Christmas mince pies are bought - a different beast altogether.
I do make cake (several, much like my everyday fruit cake but with added cherries peel & spice, one iced with marzipan and one without, or a half and half with a marzipan star under the icing), and pudding to OH's grandmother's recipe - she called it King Georges Christmas pudding. I have several plastic pudding basins with uneven bases due to the pudds boiling dry, so use pot basins now.

[stace]

Mo i have never made a xmas pudding, those i usually buy also

[Mo]

I never liked Christmas pudding till I tasted King George's. Mind you it's all a bit hit and miss. A small carrot, one egg - how small?- a 2oz egg or a 3 oz egg, I've got both? Last year I did buy a couple of individual 'Free from' pudds as SIL and granddaughter have gone gluten free, and the other daughter is now vegetarian. Which has complicated the traditional Solstice meal (which we invite the kids to as we wanted to avoid the 'who's going where on The Day?')

[p.penn]

Stace, you must try making a pud! I too didn't like it until I made my own, altogether more yummy Also it is so easy, bung all the inhredients in a bowl and stir (don't forget to make a wish!). Ok, you do have to cook it for 6 hours initially, but then, on the day just 5 mins in a microwave

Mine has carrots in it

[Spreckly]

Lyn - your "Christmas" cake is so pretty.

We made our cakes yesterday. A large and a smaller one. The smaller one is for Christmas, which will be iced with homemade almond paste and a stiff water icing. I have several Father Christmas figures, which are stuck on the top, plus a couple of fir trees and reindeers (miniatures). One of the Father Christmas figures is from my childhood, so is wrapped and carefully stored when not on the cake. The large cake is for OH's birthday at the end of January.

Still got mince pies to make, two dozen for the village carol service, two dozen for our other church carol service, and about four dozen for family and friends.

We bought our pudding from A....di again, though I did make them for years. One year when the boys, my Father and my Uncle were all with us, something went dreadfully wrong, and the pudding was runny! We ended up eating the Christmas trifle and homemade icecream instead. I am not allowed to forget the disaster.

[Mo]

I am not allowed to forget the disaster.

Things have a habit of being remembered.
Our Christmas phone call to MIL always (after the first year of our marriage) included the question "have you dropped the turkey yet?"


Slippery things, half cooked turkeys, and a lot bigger than I was used to cooking