I got my cake and ate it...

And it was soooooo good. Of course I had to share it with WP. he said it tasted good too. Imagine, he liked something British, perhaps there is hope for him yet.

Because he likes it I will take on the task. I have left it too late this year (many people make them 2-3 months in advance to make sure that they are well and truly soaked in Brandy)
Maybe I will make one next year- That should be fun, me making something as complicated as a Christmas cake.
I have no doubt it will turn out brick like enough to use as a door stop. The fruit will have all sunk to the bottom too.

Inspired I thought I would look into it, and found a few facts out.:

• The Christmas Cake as we know it today comes from two customs which became one around 1870 in Victorian England. Originally there was a porridge, the origins of which go back to the beginnings of Christianity. Then there was a fine cake made with the finest milled wheatflour, this was baked only in the Great Houses, as not many people had ovens back in the 14th century.


• PLUM PORRIDGE :Originally people used to eat a sort of porridge on Christmas Eve. It was a dish to line the stomach after a day's fasting, which people used to observe for Christmas Eve, or the 'Vigil' as it was called long ago. Gradually, they began to put spices, dried fruits, honey etc in the porridge to make it a special dish for Christmas. Much later it was turned into a pudding, because it got to be so stiff with all the fruits and things, that they would tie it in a cloth, and dunk it into a large cauldron of boiling water and boil it for many hours. This turned into Christmas Pudding.

yuk I hate Christmas pudding, which is often served as a dessert after dinner on Christmas day. Its usually set alight and brought to the table dancing with blue flames from all the brandy. Its then served with some kind of sweet white sauce, either Rum, Brandy or plain.

• PLUMCAKE : Later, around the 16th century, it became popular to add butter, replace the oatmeal with wheatflour, add eggs to hold it together better. This became boiled plumcake. So boiled plum pudding and boiled fruitcake existed side by side depending on which ingredients the housewife used. Only big houses had proper ovens to bake in. In the castles and fine homes, people would make a special cake for Easter, which was a rich fruitcake recipe with a topping of what we now call marzipan or almond paste. A similar cake was baked for the Christmas festivities, but whereas the Easter one was a plain cake with almonds, the Christmas one had dried fruits in season and spices. These represented the exotic spices of the East, and the gifts of the Wise Men . Such things were first brought to Europe and Britain particularly, by the Crusaders coming back from the wars in the Holy Land in the 12th century.

• TWELFTH NIGHT CAKE : But it was not a Christmas cake, but a Twelfth Night Cake. Twelfth night is on the 5th January, and has been for centuries the traditional last day of the Christmas season.. It was a time for having a great feast, and the cake was an essential part of the festivities. This was slightly different in different countries, and also at different social levels.But after the Reformation, these customs of the Church were banned by the Puritans, and fell into disuse. Without its religious overtones, Twelfth Night became a time of mischief and over indulgence. By 1870, Britains Queen Victoria announced that she felt it was inappropriate to hold such an unchristian festival, and Twelfth Night was banned as a feastday.

See even back then religion was dictating how people lived and celebrated.

• THE ARRIVAL OF THE CHRISTMAS CAKE : The confectioners who made the cakes were left with boxes full of figurines and models for Twelfth Cakes, and also had lost revenue by the banning of the feast. So they began to bake a fruitcake and decorate it with snowy scenes, or even flower gardens and Italian romantic ruins. These they sold not for the 5th January, but for December Christmas parties. And it was thus that we developed the Christmas cake.

I am ashamed to say I didn't know any of the above facts. so at least I learnt something today...

Now in case any of you out there want to try to make it too I will include the recipe. the ingredients are subject to a bit of open interpretation, some people don't like to add the brandy, some people don't add the nuts and so on.

Ingredients
For the cake:
500g/1lb 2oz sultanas
255g/9oz lexia raisins
200g/7oz glace cherries, halved
110g/4oz currants
110g/4oz cut mixed peel
110g/4oz ready-to-eat dried figs, roughly chopped
110g/4oz ready-to-eat dried apricots, roughly chopped
110g/4oz ready to-eat dried pitted prunes, roughly chopped
150ml/5fl oz brandy
1 small orange, grated zest and juice
255g/9oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g/7oz dark muscovado sugar
5 medium eggs
300g/10.5oz plain flour
200g/7oz macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
For the decoration:
3 tbsp apricot jam
500g/1lb 2oz white marzipan
140g/5oz ready-to-roll white icing
packet royal icing mix
silver balls, to decorate
icing sugar, to dust

Method
1. Put the sultanas, raisins, glace cherries, currants, peel, figs, apricots and prunes in a large bowl and pour over the brandy, orange zest and juice. Mix well, cover and leave to stand overnight.

2. Line the base of a 23cm/9in cake tin with a double thickness of parchment paper. Line the sides of the tin with a double thickness of parchment paper, so that it comes 4-5cm/1.5-2in above the edge of the tin. Wrap a sheet of folded newspaper around the outside of the tin and secure with string. Stand the prepared tin on a folded sheet of newspaper on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a little of the flour if the mixture starts to curdle. Add the fruit, its soaking liquid and the nuts and mix well. Stir in the flour, taking care not to over mix it. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface with the back of a spoon. Bake for 3-4 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. If the top of the cake starts to get too brown, cover with a sheet of baking parchment.

4. When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin. Store the cake in an airtight tin, wrapped in greaseproof paper and foil for between two and three months. Feed the cake with brandy every 2-3 weeks until you are ready to decorate it.

5. Pass the jam through a sieve and warm it in a pan with 1 tbsp of water. Invert the cake onto a serving plate or board. Use a little of the marzipan to fill any gaps between the cake and the plate. Brush the jam all over the cake. Roll out the remaining marzipan and lift carefully onto the cake, easing it around the sides. Trim off any excess with a sharp knife.

6. Roll out the ready-to-roll icing to a 0.5cm/ 1/4 in thickness and cut out as many star shapes as you can, re-rolling the trimmings. Set aside on parchment paper to harden. Meanwhile, make up the royal icing according to the instructions on the packet. Spread the icing over the cake to cover it, then roughly peak it using a spatula. Arrange the stars on top and scatter over the silver balls. Leave the icing to harden, then dust the cake with icing sugar.