Christmas preparations for some in the UK, including me, involve soaking a homemade fruitcake in copious quantities of brandy. Once the cake is suitably tanked we traditionally cover it with a yellow plasticine like paste made from almonds then smother a mix of raw egg white and sugar on it to harden and little plastic decorations stuck in to make pristine white snow scenes. This concoction is then said to be ready and delicious. It's served for tea on Christmas day to which everyone who is invited to partake politely declines as they either cannot stand Christmas cake or are still full from lunch.
A new tradition has emerged in recent years, buying Christmas cake from supermarket already pasted with marzipan, iced and decorated and still declined at teatime. For my part I still make a cake but I do not make the traditional heavy duty millstone. Instead I use a recipe that involves English tea instead of butter. Yes my cake drinks tea and brandy,like me. The result is a light fruit cake that is fat free but sozzled, again like me. Additionally I don't put a sheet of yellow almond paste over it as I make my cake nut free.
That leaves me traditionally with the challenge of decorating and not getting bits of cake in the icing as the marzipan would act as a barrier. Last year I stuck my gastronomic fingers up at the challenge and embraced my 'snow after the gritter has been through' affect.
My cake is made. This year I've cut it into 2 so as the young on line shopping genius can take a piece away with her to Devon.
Last Saturday Mr Him and I found we were both feeding it brandy. Forget the icing, gritter affect or not, we'll just drink the cake this year.
This was a new bottle!
If you think what we Brits do to our Christmas cake is eccentric you should see what we do to our Christmas pudding.
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