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Nov. 15th, 2007 10:56 pmToday we made the Christmas cake.
I weighed and measured all the ingredients, except the fruit which I had put to soak in rum and brandy last night and did everything else except the actual mixing with a wooden spoon after everything was assembled. Charles did the stirring, because I just can't manage a heavy thick mixture like that myself any more but John and I both had a little stir and a wish. I don't know why we bother - the wishes never seem to come true!
I cooked the cake for 3 hours and it came out almost perfect, except that it had risen slightly, which was probably because the eggs were too big and so it had cracked just a little, but it won't matter because I shall use the base as the top anyway.
So now we have a cake and two puddings. I shall start feeding the cake with brandy and rum tomorrow. I usually leave the icing until the week before Christmas because none of us like that extremely hard icing you get if you do it really early with several coats of icing.
My cousin makes wonderful iced cakes which are so beautiful you don't want to cut them but I always think the Royal Icing gets too hard if you do it the proper way and in any case, we gobble our cake up fairly quickly instead of keeping for months like she does. She's so irritatingly good at everything!
Although I went to Morrison's this morning to get some black treacle, I completely forgot the marzipan. Maybe I'll make my own this year, since I have another month to sort it out; I did it once before and thought it much better than ready-made. I also forgot to get any mincemeat. I must get some soon so that I can doctor it with brandy and give it a chance for the flavour to mature. I've never made my own mincemeat. I had a friend who used to make it for me, but now I'm such a long way away I either have to make my own or buy it.
It's lovely to start doing the Christmas cooking, it makes me feel festive and cheerful. I may even make chocolate covered Florentines again this year if I can do it while everyone's out and then hide them till Christmas. I swore I'd never make any more after last time when they ate them one by one as they came off the production line!
The one time I made ginger snaps John ate them all as I made them! The same with doughnuts!
I must remember to go to IKEA and get a tin of those lovely little ginger biscuits. We all love those and they're really nice with things like ice-cream and lemon mousse. I shall make the lemon mousse as usual again this year. Sometimes we don't feel like Christmas pudding after dinner, but there's always room for a couple of spoonsful of lemon mousse!
We're now wondering what to have for Christmas dinner this year. We had a lovely goose last year but it's too expensive for people who are economising and in any case, it looks as though all sorts of fowl may be in short supply now that they've found the bad version of bird flu in Norfolk and Suffolk. There has been an outbreak at the place which supplies Gressingham foods, which is where last year's goose came from.
Maybe we'll just stick with the roast beef, or our perennial favourite, coq au vin. Or perhaps I shall get Charles to cook his lovely Arroz con Pollo! That would be a really economical Christmas Dinner, but delicious just the same.
I plan to sort out the dining room this weekend so that I can put all my craft stuff down there, where I can shut the door on it to prevent the cats from messing it up and make some Christmas cards.
I'm starting to get excited! It's far too early!
I weighed and measured all the ingredients, except the fruit which I had put to soak in rum and brandy last night and did everything else except the actual mixing with a wooden spoon after everything was assembled. Charles did the stirring, because I just can't manage a heavy thick mixture like that myself any more but John and I both had a little stir and a wish. I don't know why we bother - the wishes never seem to come true!
I cooked the cake for 3 hours and it came out almost perfect, except that it had risen slightly, which was probably because the eggs were too big and so it had cracked just a little, but it won't matter because I shall use the base as the top anyway.
So now we have a cake and two puddings. I shall start feeding the cake with brandy and rum tomorrow. I usually leave the icing until the week before Christmas because none of us like that extremely hard icing you get if you do it really early with several coats of icing.
My cousin makes wonderful iced cakes which are so beautiful you don't want to cut them but I always think the Royal Icing gets too hard if you do it the proper way and in any case, we gobble our cake up fairly quickly instead of keeping for months like she does. She's so irritatingly good at everything!
Although I went to Morrison's this morning to get some black treacle, I completely forgot the marzipan. Maybe I'll make my own this year, since I have another month to sort it out; I did it once before and thought it much better than ready-made. I also forgot to get any mincemeat. I must get some soon so that I can doctor it with brandy and give it a chance for the flavour to mature. I've never made my own mincemeat. I had a friend who used to make it for me, but now I'm such a long way away I either have to make my own or buy it.
It's lovely to start doing the Christmas cooking, it makes me feel festive and cheerful. I may even make chocolate covered Florentines again this year if I can do it while everyone's out and then hide them till Christmas. I swore I'd never make any more after last time when they ate them one by one as they came off the production line!
The one time I made ginger snaps John ate them all as I made them! The same with doughnuts!
I must remember to go to IKEA and get a tin of those lovely little ginger biscuits. We all love those and they're really nice with things like ice-cream and lemon mousse. I shall make the lemon mousse as usual again this year. Sometimes we don't feel like Christmas pudding after dinner, but there's always room for a couple of spoonsful of lemon mousse!
We're now wondering what to have for Christmas dinner this year. We had a lovely goose last year but it's too expensive for people who are economising and in any case, it looks as though all sorts of fowl may be in short supply now that they've found the bad version of bird flu in Norfolk and Suffolk. There has been an outbreak at the place which supplies Gressingham foods, which is where last year's goose came from.
Maybe we'll just stick with the roast beef, or our perennial favourite, coq au vin. Or perhaps I shall get Charles to cook his lovely Arroz con Pollo! That would be a really economical Christmas Dinner, but delicious just the same.
I plan to sort out the dining room this weekend so that I can put all my craft stuff down there, where I can shut the door on it to prevent the cats from messing it up and make some Christmas cards.
I'm starting to get excited! It's far too early!
