Christmas cake (3)
Due to a largish night last night I may not be in the best frame of mind today to start the project. Unfortunately 3 Christmas cakes wait for no man.
I have to lay it on the line and say straight up that I’m not a big fan of Christmas cake. To clarify, by “not a big fan” I mean I don’t eat it, ever.
The thing is I don’t like raisins and I like sultanas even less. It’s a texture thing. Under normal circumstances I will quite happily pick the raisins out of things (baked goods, cereals, curries etc) and feed them to helpful family members, work colleagues or rabbits. Christmas cake doesn’t fall into this category in that by the time you pick out all of the raisins there isn’t really anything left so most of my Christmas cake experiences are eating other people’s discarded icing.
But as Christmas cakes require a certain amount of time to mature I will have start on them now if they are to be eaten at Christmas time – if not by me then by someone else.
The De Luxe 7th edition Edmonds has three Christmas cake recipes – creatively labelled Christmas cake (1), Christmas cake (2) and Christmas cake (3). Naturally I decided to start with #3
Now, as I mentioned, last night may have had some impact on my performance this morning. I started creaming my butter and sugar and at this point I actually read through the recipe – about three steps on I was supposed to be adding the “prepared fruit”. No suggestion was given on exactly I was supposed do to the fruit to prepare it and being a Christmas cake virgin I was at something of a loss. I am getting the feeling that in 1966 the Edmonds cookbook had expectations about people’s level of baking knowledge which is possibly not all that relevant to today.
So, naturally, I turned to Alison Holst, who advised me to wash my fruit – ok, that I can do. And good idea it turned out to be considering that the water went a particularly filthy brown. At this point I again consulted Alison who advised me to dry the fruit in the sun– and here was the kicker – in order to get the fruit completely dry it should be done a day ahead. Could you not have mentioned this earlier Alison and I would have just lived with having dirty fruit?
So to cut an increasingly long story short I ended up with a very nasty, sticky brown tea towel and only slightly damp fruit.
I then proceeded to forget to add any of the spices so they had to be added into the already mixed batter right at the end. On this point, the book helpfully listed 1 dessertspoon of spice in the ingredients. Dessertspoon? Spice? I put in 2 teaspoons of mixed spice but if anyone has any suggestions on what measure a dessertspoon actually is I would be grateful – add to that list a teacup and a breakfast cup (why couldn’t they use teacups for breakfast?) which also turn up in some of the baking recipes.
I have to lay it on the line and say straight up that I’m not a big fan of Christmas cake. To clarify, by “not a big fan” I mean I don’t eat it, ever.
The thing is I don’t like raisins and I like sultanas even less. It’s a texture thing. Under normal circumstances I will quite happily pick the raisins out of things (baked goods, cereals, curries etc) and feed them to helpful family members, work colleagues or rabbits. Christmas cake doesn’t fall into this category in that by the time you pick out all of the raisins there isn’t really anything left so most of my Christmas cake experiences are eating other people’s discarded icing.
But as Christmas cakes require a certain amount of time to mature I will have start on them now if they are to be eaten at Christmas time – if not by me then by someone else.
The De Luxe 7th edition Edmonds has three Christmas cake recipes – creatively labelled Christmas cake (1), Christmas cake (2) and Christmas cake (3). Naturally I decided to start with #3
Now, as I mentioned, last night may have had some impact on my performance this morning. I started creaming my butter and sugar and at this point I actually read through the recipe – about three steps on I was supposed to be adding the “prepared fruit”. No suggestion was given on exactly I was supposed do to the fruit to prepare it and being a Christmas cake virgin I was at something of a loss. I am getting the feeling that in 1966 the Edmonds cookbook had expectations about people’s level of baking knowledge which is possibly not all that relevant to today.
So, naturally, I turned to Alison Holst, who advised me to wash my fruit – ok, that I can do. And good idea it turned out to be considering that the water went a particularly filthy brown. At this point I again consulted Alison who advised me to dry the fruit in the sun– and here was the kicker – in order to get the fruit completely dry it should be done a day ahead. Could you not have mentioned this earlier Alison and I would have just lived with having dirty fruit?
So to cut an increasingly long story short I ended up with a very nasty, sticky brown tea towel and only slightly damp fruit.
I then proceeded to forget to add any of the spices so they had to be added into the already mixed batter right at the end. On this point, the book helpfully listed 1 dessertspoon of spice in the ingredients. Dessertspoon? Spice? I put in 2 teaspoons of mixed spice but if anyone has any suggestions on what measure a dessertspoon actually is I would be grateful – add to that list a teacup and a breakfast cup (why couldn’t they use teacups for breakfast?) which also turn up in some of the baking recipes.
So at the moment my cake is enjoying it’s 4 hours in the oven and I am thumbing the Edmonds for dinner ideas. Stuffed Marrow anyone? Not ideal hangover food I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment