Christmas Cake

Like it or not Christmas day is but 41 days from today, that is just 40 sleeps until the big event when your children will come bouncing into your bedroom at 3am, wanting to know ‘if he’s been yet’, signs of the remainder of the Christmas stocking will be etched all around their mouths and you will wish you hadn’t had that extra large glass of port before you came to bed just 2 hours ago.

Sadly, younger Britons seem to be going off the taste of most traditional Christmas treats. 79% of the over 60s like the taste of Christmas cake, while only 39% of 18-34s feel the same; 81% of the older generation like Christmas pudding, compared to just 34% of youngsters; and the most loved Christmas dessert, mince pies, (liked by 71% in total compared to 60% for the other two) are enjoyed by 87% of over 60s, compared to 58% of 18-24s.

But, wait, hold on a minute there, we are far too much ahead of ourselves here, if I cast my mind back to the early sixties, perhaps 1962, the big freeze of 1962 became a huge inconvenience that had widespread adverse effects, Generally, a white Christmas was much more common in the 50s and 60s. UK winters tended to be much colder and receive far more snowfall back then. Sledging, snowman building and even ice-skating were activities that would often take place on Christmas day and throughout the holiday, something that we couldn’t possibly imagine doing today! The big freeze started a couple of days before Christmas and stayed with us for 3 months.

But before that in November my dear old Gran would start to think about making the Christmas cake. I can see her now complete with hair net, wraparound pinny and sleeves rolled up ready to start work.

Gran would have normally said It’s best to get baking around two or three months before Christmas. This would give her plenty of time to let it mature and ‘feed’ her Christmas Cake regularly as the big day approached. It also gave it a good amount of time to firm up and to improve its flavour and appearance with the help of a little bit of liquor to keep it moist. Of course, when the time came to slice her cake it would be more than ready, if they ate their Christmas Cake too soon after baking it would simply start to crumble. As they got older gran preferred to bake closer to Christmas, this just meant that it would simply have less of a ‘kick’ as she’d have less time to feed it with rum, brandy or sherry. But by that time they were too old to be particular about the alcoholic content, Grandad traditionally nipped down the local at dinnertime, so the last thing he needed was ‘topping up after his liquid lunch and his Christmas dinner.

My Gran was always baking, so she would have had most of the ingredients to hand anyway, such as eggs, butter and sugar, she may just have had to pop into to town to pick up a couple of pounds of mixed fruit. It was always a real treat to watch her mixing the ingredients in the big brown bowl she used, but we were just waiting to lick the spoon when she’d finished.

The mixture then went into a prepared baking tin then straight into the oven for a few hours.

The smell in that time would become increasingly Christmassy as it filled the whole house. She’d take it out when ready and leave it to cool on a wire tray.

Once she’d baked and cooled her Christmas cake, she would store it in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight, in this case her built in pantry was ideal. She’d wrap the cake in parchment or greaseproof paper and then in foil twice. After feeding and wrapping it was popped into an airtight container.

Traditionally Christmas cake has a rich, spicy fruity taste, often associated with brandy but whisky, sherry and fortified wine such as Madeira or port which will Gran knew would help keep the Christmas cake from spoiling, then every Sunday morning without fail she would take the cake from the pantry, and carefully pour two teaspoons of brandy over it.

Gran would Poke holes in her cake using a thin skewer to help the brandy seep through the sponge. she only used about one or two tablespoons of which Grandad used to moan, as it was his nightcap.

About a week before Christmas day Gran made the icing, pure white and as smooth as silk, it would harden in the pantry.

I just remember that it was the best Christmas cake I had ever tasted.

In between looking after the cake there would be mincemeat to make for the mince pies, there would be the Christmas pudding to make and lots of other pre-Christmas tasks – but that is another story!