Most countries have their own type of Christmas cake. In Italy it is a beautiful bread based Pannetone, which is a sweet bread with dried fruits added. In Germany, it would be an almond flavoured Stollen. Some people have a Yule log, a chocolate cake log shaped and this links back to the ancient, pre Christian British festival of burning a Yule log at midwinter.
Here in Britain we have a traditional fruit cake. The Royal family eat a traditional iced Christmas cake on Christmas day- even the royal children who eat in the nursery away from the adult family. In Scotland the cake is covered on top with almonds and called Dundee cake after that lovely city.
I have made a traditional English cake. They are usually decorated but not always. Some people use a boiled fruit cake recipe to make it moist.
Although I make this for everyone, I of course couldn't eat it as I gain weight easily. But one slice won't do you much harm! :)
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Comments
Our mother baked magnificently on a limited budget and with limited ingredients. I still use her pastry recipe and her apple shortbread recipe and I have passed them on to my daughters in law.
Veronica's [and my] mother was an excellent baker, so Veronica is faithfully following where her mother left off.
I use fondant icing .
the marzipan needs to dry out otherwise the almond oil can discolour the icing. So the thinnest layer of hot apricot jam goes on the cake and icing is applied about 7 to 10 days later after it has dried out sufficiently.
Veronica, Thank you for letting us read and see your cake-baking methods up close and fresh from the oven. Allergies and the latest flu, for six months now!, are perhaps getting in the way of my thinking this through but how can a fruit cake sound hollow? I understand those who favor no icing but I noticed in one of your comments below that you mention the thinnest of hot apricot jam and of marzipan followed 10 days later by icing. Is the icing special because of Christmas or just ordinary icing?
As if I would ever EVER tease my oldest and most eccentric brother ....
I reiterate though that you have taken it all with a quiet dignity for decades. Respect sir respect !
I regard icing as an unnecessary addition to a cake. I don't eat it much, for solid sugar is fattening, and I am fat enough,as you probably will remind me.
BSG
I have two of those cake tins which have a hole in the centre and also some mini bundts . I make sponge in the mini bundts and a savarin in the larger ones. I haven't made a fruit cake bundt but that would be lovely for Xmas as it would look like a holly wreath.
To decorate a fruit cake,....
..... a thin layer of hot apricot jam is applied and then
a thin layer of marzipan is applied next so the surface is smooth for the icing to attach itself to. The cake sits for ten days so the marzipan sets and the icing isn't spilt by almond oil.
Once the ten days are up then icing is applied and any decorations.
it is a long process but still popular.
I have eaten fruit cake, but these are never iced in this area. They are often rectangular, or round with a hole in the center, much like a bunt cake.
Yes indeed. I made two fruit cakes of course because my husband loves it. My dad, my husband and you and another brother don't eat icing on Christmas cake.
This cake has 7 weeks to mature so should be delicious. I am not sure that my husband will allow you a piece though on Christmas Eve. :)
Thanks for the foretaste of Christmas. But while you may be watching your weight,nothing comes between me and fruit cake. But I rarely eat the icing.