Christmas Cake

This is my great-grandmother Gwen’s recipe. According to my mother, she was one of the best cooks to ever live!

Everything being mixed together

Rupert squeezing the lemon

Rupert mixing

Helen mixing

Pouring the cake mixture into the mini-cake tins

Charles putting the almonds on.

Helen with the cake

Helen’s “almond design”.

Rupert and Charles with the mini- Christmas cakes

You will need:

• 500 g of butter
• 500 g of sugar
• 500 g of plain flower
• 125 g of self raisin flower
• 1000 g of sultanas
• 300 g of currants/cranberries
• 375 g of seeded raisins
• 200 g of blanched almonds
• 9 eggs
• Grated rind of 1 orange
• grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
• 4 table spoons of marmalade
• 1/2 a cup of brandy or sherry

 But be warned: this recipe makes 1×26 cm round tin, 12 muffin size (makes a good gift if wrapped in cellophane with a bow, plus 1 log tin.

Instructions:

1. Prepare the fruit the previous day
2. Blanch and split the almonds
3. Grate the orange and lemon rind.
4. Place all together in a bowl and pour over lemon juice and brandy
5. Completely cover until the next day
6. After at least 24 hours beat butter and sugar until creamy
7.  Add eggs one at a time using a little of the flour (well sifted to prevent curdling.)
8.  Add fruit and flour alternately.
9.  Bake at 125 c until cooked in the middle  (could be 2 hours for round tin, 40 minutes the muffin size) 

Helen

 

Christmas Jars

This is one of the Christmas pots we made. It was quite simple and didn’t take long at all. This is how we made it:

1. Take a clay pot and fill it with rice.
2. Forage for natural items. (eg. pine cones, plane tree seeds, twigs, holly, pine tree branches…) If you want to, paint them with glue and sprinkle some glitter.
3. Stick  the natural items and candle into the rice.
4. Light the candle and enjoy!

NB: Take some of the foliage out of the jar before you light the candle; they might catch fire.