Be Excellent To Each Other

Last night I went to my local supermarket and brought all the ingredients (except the butter grr..) home* to bake me a Christmas cake. I even treated myself to a bottle of Curiosity Cola to drink while making it.

This will be the second year of me baking one. My girlfriend doesn't like fruit cake so I will have the whole thing to myself, so it will last me all Christmas and into April. I will be using Delia's recipe (found here http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/the- ... 93,RC.html)

So the whole point of this thread is to see if anyone else bakes Christmas cakes and to inspire people to try it themselves. It really is a surprisingly easy thing to do.

Also I couldn't find an answer on the web for this. Is there any difference between a 33p bag of plain flour and a £1-something bag. It's plain flour, there can't be much difference surely.

* stealth edit

I hate fruit cake.

You would generally only care about grades of flour if you were making bread or pasta.

I love Christmas cake, but Ange doesn't. I might 'do a Bluecup' and make my own.

Thank you, that's what I thought. And what with the cake being full of other yummy things the flour really wouldn't matter.

We cured Grim... we can cure you.

You might be taking your Mafia allegiances just a little bit too seriously, dude.

Bum.

[edit] Now fixed [/edit]

Maybe he did bring all the ingredients with him, to show them where they originally came from and to show them what they would be made into.

Long shot, perhaps, but never underestimate the weirdness of people on a forum.

My mum usually makes me a christmas cake every year. I fucking love it. It's number #7 on the list of reasons why my mum is ace.

I always feel like I'm missing out at Christmas. I hate Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies... anything of that ilk. You know, rich, fruity stuff.

Everyone's sat around guzzling Xmas pud and I'm sat weeping in the corner with, er, a French Fancy or something.

If it's any consolation, you're not alone.

I sense the potential for disagreement in the Gazchap / Shin relationship this Christmas.

There probably are some freaks of nature out there, you're right.

Delia's recipe is missing at least five types of alcohol from it, also a carrot or two - keeps it so lovely and moist, and the carrot 'disappears' into a Christmas cake, so you don't know it is there, but it adds a lovely new level of sweetness. We always added a glass of cola to our cakes as well. I'd copy my Nan's favourite christmas cake recipe, but I am far from London at the moment. Delia's cake looks like it might be too dry.

I guess everyone's nan makes the best cake/Christmas pudding, though.

Eh? Don't I? I love fruit cake, especially with a slab of cheese. Proper northern like

Mine pies rule and my mum makes the best mince meat ever. Yummy

Christmas pudding isn't my favourite but I'll eat it. Not brandy sauce though. Ick.

Yes, yes they do.

I used the recipe last year and it wasn't that dry but it could of been the oven. I've got a different oven this year; a gas one, which I've still haven't got the hang of, instead of an electric fan oven which I think will make a difference. Or it could of been the little bit of brandy I "borrowed" off my dad which had been sitting in the cardboard for about 20 years.

With the amount of ingredients you get in a packet I think I will be able to make two cakes so would be very interested in when and how you add a carrot to a fruit cake.

In about 30 years I'm sure I will worked out my own little perfect recipe.

I remember when I hadn't been in Lancaster very long I popped to a little tea shop and ordered some fruit cake and a cup of tea, and it came with some Lancashire Crumbly cheese on the side. I must have looked like this

I'd have cheese with anything. I can remember more than one occasion in uni where my meal was a thick slab of cheese dipped in salad cream. om nom nom.

I eat better now.

I bake cakes all the time, love it, and so much cheaper than buying cake.

Flour ? I buy whatevers in stock, doesnt seem to affect cakes.
If im at a large supermarket, cheapest usually.
Likewise with butter ( I use baking margarine).

Ill probably make a christmas cake this year.
Last year I spent Christmas in Romania and got to eat loads of their cakes, really awesome, but no fruit in sight!

Love fruitcake
mmmm

During my last year if Uni, every day on the way back, I'd buy 12 mince pies, and eat them. The only cake I've ever had that I didn't like was a chocolate courgette cake, whicgh was vile and tried to kill me.

But in general, baked goods are the finest thing known to mankind, and I pity those who don't bake themselves ovely cakes every weekday.

Chocolate courgette cake?
As in a chocolate cake, with courgettes in?
Finally, this is proof there is no god.

Chocolate beetroot cake is yummy, too.

It has Courgettes in in the same way a carrot cake has carrots in. And if you're not warned in advance that it's not a standard chocolate cake, then you're in for a nasty surprise, although you wouldn't suspect it was due to courgettes, just that it tasted hideous. (Admittedly, it could be more to do with the bakers or specific recipe than the idea itself, but I don't wish to try and find out.)

Now, my Chocolate beer cake on the other hand.... that's worth having. Lots.

It did make me think of carrot cake, but that always seems to be quite inoffensive, although I don't really mind carrots (I don't really mind courgettes either, but I don't think I'd want them in a cake).

Is this your chocolate beer cake recipe?
Ingredients:
1 chocolate cake
1 (or more) cans of beer

Directions:
Eat cake while drinking the beer.


@Myoptika - Beetroot cake?!