Making The Family Christmas Cake
23rd November 2024 - New Experience Number 38.
This year I took on the responsibility of making the family Christmas cake. I have clearly been spoilt as I had never tried making one before, and I blooming love them!
As well as keeping a tradition alive, it was also an opportunity for me to give it a go as one of my 52 new things.
I hadn’t anticipated just how much of a sensory, and evocative experience this would be.
A Family Tradition
Whilst some traditions are synonymous with places, others relate to people. No doubt you and your family have certain things you do each Christmas which are now seamlessly woven into your festive celebrations and the season wouldn’t be the same if you didn’t do it.
One of the traditions in my family, as it may well be in yours, is the Christmas Cake.
My Mum has made a Christmas cake each year for all of my life, and the deliciously dense, rum infused fruit cake has been a staple through the ever changing tapestry of my life.
From the Christmases when our house was full as we welcomed in my two grandma’s and my great aunt, and my sister and I went on an adventure as we gave up our rooms to sleep on a camp bed in my parents room.
Christmases when I’d been away at university and returned to the family fold for a festive embrace as I was finding my way in the world.
To Christmases as an adult, when we take much needed downtime from the busyness of life to spend time together.
The Christmas cake had been a staple part of our celebrations, and it had always been made by my Mum.
Handing Over The Baton
2024, however, was different. My Mum and Dad were downsizing, and the stress and mither of sorting and packing and moving meant that some things had to give.
As Mum and I were going through the kitchen shelves and cupboards, organising crockery and cutlery into what she wanted to keep and take with them to the new place, we came across the faded old cookbook.
Mum handed it to me. The coverless and tatty pages were the remains of the Belling recipe book which had come with an oven my parents had bought in the 70s. Hidden within those often used, well loved pages, was the Christmas cake recipe, and It was now over to me.
So, come November, I added the ingredients to my shopping list and took over the reigns for making the family Christmas cake.
So Much More Than A Recipe
This felt different to following a regular recipe from a book. This had warmth and memories, unwritten yet entwined within the list of ingredients and the written instructions.
As I inspected the recipe and began getting out the ingredients, my mind floated back to being six or seven. Not a specific day or date, but more of a feeling of a memory.
My Mum would have been in the kitchen, the radio keeping her company as she measured and mixed.
I would have been in the living room, either engaging in a story with a teddy or two, or sitting on the floor next to the coffee table which I’d use as a desk as I scrawled words and pictures across computer paper my Dad had brought home from work for me to unleash my creative energy.
Softened sounds emanated from the kitchen. The muffled voice of the radio presenter chatting to guests; the gentle sound of the wooden spoon stirring ingredients in the plastic bowl, the low hum of the oven as it heated up to temperature. Sounds which I didn’t focus and pay attention to, but provided a reassuring soundtrack.
It would likely be a gloomy, late autumn day. The house feeling cosy and snug with a couple of lamps glowing, keeping the dreariness of the weather securely on the outside.
The sweet and warming smells drifting from the kitchen, gently whetting my appetite at the aroma led promise of the delights to come.
My overriding memories of this scenario, are feelings of safety and contentment. The ignorant bliss of being so young, with limited worries and no concept of a to-do list. Being able to busy myself in my own imagined world, with the comforting awareness that my Mum was near.
Looking at the exact book that my Mum would have been looking at, brought those simple childhood sensations flooding back.
Preparing For Making The Family Christmas Cake
I’m usually comfortable following a recipe for the first time, but this one had a certain amount of unspoken, self-inflicted, added pressure. Would it hold together ok? Would it be dry? Would it live up to the deliciousness my Mum had made every year?
Feint pencil markings where my Mum has adjusted the measurements to her preferences were just visible on the yellowing pages. Small marks speckled over some of the words, evidence of previous cooking adventures.
There were no pictures in the book, something I often rely on when I’m following a recipe, but I had years of experience to reflect back on, giving me some semblance of a visual aid.
Make And Bake
I weighed out the ingredients, following the adaptations my Mum had made, and then cut out the baking paper and lined the cake tin.
Next was making the cake, which only had 4 very straightforward steps.
I creamed, beat, sieved, and folded, and once all of the ingredients were in the bowl, I gave the hefty mixture a good stir to combine it together before pouring it into the tin, and then putting it into the oven.
Three and a half hours later, the house was full of the wonderfully warming smells emitting from the oven. I was nervous about how it would look, and as I tentatively wrapped my oven gloves around the tin and placed it onto the worktop, I was so pleased to see a beautifully risen, firm, golden fruit cake.
I left it in the tin to cool, and then carefully removed it. It was heavy, but it held together perfectly, and I was very proud that it looked how I expected a Christmas cake to look.
Once it had properly cooled, I placed it into a layer of baking paper, then a layer of foil and put it into a lidded cake tin for safe keeping and maturing.
Making The Family Christmas Cake - Feeding The Cake
My Mum had always fed the Christmas cake by pouring on some alcohol and so of course I followed suit.
The recipe was a bit vague with how to go about the feeding part of the process. It suggested to add a wineglass full of brandy the day after it had been made.
Mum had always used rum. I was carrying on the tradition of making her Christmas cake, so opted to use rum too. However, unlike the suggestion in the recipe of adding it all the next day, I decided to add two shot glasses of the spirit at a time, and repeated the process over a couple of weekends.
Every time I lifted the lid on the tin to give it a top up, it smelt reassuringly familiar. We wouldn’t be trying this until Boxing Day when we would be visiting my parents, so I had several weeks to wait to find out if it tasted as good as it the aroma.
Making The Family Christmas Cake - Decorating
To truly make the alcoholic fruit cake a Christmas cake, it needed decorating, and the weekend before Christmas Day was pencilled in for the final part of the process.
I had some marzipan and some fondant icing left over from making fondant fancies a couple of weeks earlier, so rather than make my own, I decided to use these up.
I was so pleased with the cake that I didn’t want to risk messing it up by being too adventurous with the decorating. I kept it simple, and only added a layer of marzipan and icing to the very top.
The decorative wrap I hoped to fix around the edge of the cake was unfortunately too wide. I considered trimming it, but the pattern would have looked a little odd.
I could have sworn I had a couple of decorations in a small Tupperware box in the back of a cupboard, yet when I went to retrieve them, all I had was a ‘Happy Christmas’ sign. Using white icing flowers left over from a previous baking project, and white chocolate chips, I ended up with more minimal embellishments.
It wasn’t the most festive looking Christmas cake, but it was neat and I was pleased with it so far. Only one thing left, the taste test.
Surprising My Mum
When my Mum had given me the aging recipe book, I hadn’t committed to making the annual Christmas cake. In fact, I didn’t tell her at any stage that I was baking it.
We went to visit for a few days over Christmas. Once all of the presents had been opened, I gave her the cake tin. Lifting off the lid, her eyes lit up as she saw inside and announced ‘you’ve made it!’.
Both Mum and Dad were very complimentary in the overall look of the edible gift. I gave my mum the cake knife and let her do the honours. The blade effortlessly slid through the icing, continuing through the marzipan, and then slicing into the rich fruit cake.
This was the first time I’d seen inside the cake, and it looked exactly as I had hoped. It didn’t crumble, but held together with a certain squidginess.
Making The Family Christmas Cake - Proof In The Pudding
We all took a bite of our individual slices at the same time and, oh-my-days, I was really proud of myself. Adding the alcohol had been a bit of guess work really, and for a first attempt it was pretty good.
It was thick with fruit, it was moist with rum, it was perfectly complimented with just the right amount of marzipan and icing, and it was scrumptious. Accompanied by a slice or two of cheese, it was a perfect festive tea time treat.
I received Mum’s seal of approval, and she’s pleased as punch that I’ll be making the Christmas cake in the future, keeping her recipe, and all of those memories, alive.
Want To Try It Yourself?
- If you’re looking to make a Christmas cake, perhaps there’s a recipe in your family that you could follow?
- Alternatively, there are many recipes online. Take a look at a couple and find one that you would feel comfortable following. For example, BBC Good Food have a classic Christmas Cake recipe.
- Are there any other recipes that have been in your family for a while which you could try making?
Cost Of Experience
- It’s really difficult to put a figure on this one as it will totally depend on what recipe you’re following and where you shop.
- If I needed to buy everything from scratch for the Christmas cake I made it would have cost around £15
Recommendations
- Plan ahead. If you’re making a Christmas cake, you probably want to make it 6-8 weeks before you intend to consume it.
- Skewer it. If you’re going to feed alcohol to your Christmas cake, use a skewer to make some holes for it to seep through when you pour it on.
- Make adaptations. If you are following a recipe that uses something that you don’t like, why not mix it up for something else. So for example, if you don’t like nuts, why not add more dried fruits?
- Let me know. Are you making a Christmas cake for the first time? Is there a family recipe you’ve had handed down to you? Is there a recipe in your family that you’d like to learn to make? I’d love to hear from you.
My family and I have tradition for Eid Mubarak too. My mom will make her famous chocolate chip cookies, and I will make my honey joy clusters. Hehehe ^_^
I love that. I think it’s so nice to have home made recipes, made with that extra sprinkling of love.
Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment – although I really want some chocolate chip cookies now.
Sally :o)
The Christmas cake looks delicious, and that’s nice you could surprise your parents by making it! We don’t make Christmas cake, but this past Christmas I baked Danish Christmas cookies!
Thank you so much, I was really impressed at how well it turned out for a first attempt.
Oh I do love a cookie! Are there any ingredients that make them particularly Christmassy? How did they turn out?
Thanks as always for reading and taking the time to comment. I’m off to find a cookie now to go with my cup of tea!
Sally :o)