All I can see ahead of me is the dreaded Christmas shopping... I'm not keen to make a start and get sucked into it so I have put it off by buying the ingredients for a couple of Christmas Cakes and making them instead.
This way I can easily convince myself that I am making preparations and everything is under control...
I love making Christmas Cakes... I always use Delia Smith's 'Rich Fruit Cake' recipe (page 491, Delia Smith's Complete Illustrated Cookery Course). I double the quantities and find that usually the ingredients equal a full bag of the fruit, sugar, flour etc, but include an extra 50g here and there so I add an extra egg. This way there are no leftovers (I like that) and the cakes are generous.
One of the cakes is for my DH (I'm not going to tell you about the year he had a slice BEFORE I had marzipanned or iced it) and the other I gift to the Primary school my girl's go to and the teachers limit themselves to one small boozy slice a day.
I say boozy because every time DH walks past the soaking fruit he sloshes a bit more brandy/whisky in...
Anyway, here is cake number two... the cakes went in at ten to two and so I am sitting and waiting for four hours before I allow myself a peek. I couldn't find string to tie around the brown paper so I used a length of Alpaca yarn I am knitting with, knitting comes in very handy sometimes...
