Christmas Cake

Disclaimer: After reading this, you may not wish to eat my Christmas Cake this year. This is okay with me. If you see her, be sure to remark on her beauty. And I will have your slice.

It's my Mum's birthday on Christmas Day. She says that this means that when we all grow up and get married, there will be no Christmas holidays that we spend with our spouse's family because she can always play "the birthday card". I counter that when she dies, Christmas will be an unbearable holiday for us, her children, and we will inadvertently pass these negative feeling onto her grandchildren, and no-one will ever enjoy Christmas again. Touché.

Despite all this merriment, it has become a tradition that usually, if things are okay, and I remember, and it's been a good year, and my Dad doesn't just go out and buy a better one anyway, I make a Christmas cake for my Mum's birthday. This tradition was started by my Grandmother, who used to whisk me away for a day of her full attention and baking at half term. I have so many happy memories of those days. Not least of cutting out the circles of baking paper for the bottom of the cake tin, and not realising that her hand-written recipe (that she had kept safe and neat since she was a girl and someone in Ireland had taught her) somehow became attached underneath and was accidentally cut in two! Of course she had me write it out again for her, in my neatest, 10-year-old handwriting. Twice. 

Sadly, when she passed away, the recipe was lost. Both copies, and for a few years I didn't make Christmas Cake.

Then, when I was working as a cleaner for the University of Kent one year, I found a brilliant recipe book in one of the student rooms that we were cleaning out and my supervisor said I could keep it. It was one of those cookbooks where every recipe is a gem, everything it touched turned to gold. I has a bumper year of four Christmas Cakes that year, and they were all spectacular.

Sadly, that book is packed away in the wall of boxes at my parents' house, but I still remember the glow from that victory. Since then, there have been some successes (2009's almond topped beauty) and some failures (2010's burnt mess with Ugandan Sherry which I tried to make while looking after a very grumpy Freddie... My mum took it to her school and the teachers ate it... that lot'll eat anything). So I had a rest year, and now I'm back in the game.

Tunisia is awash with nuts and dried fruits, and so the temptation is to make something almost wholly Tunisian. With my new interest in nutrition and health and stuff, I also thought it would be fun (is 'fun' the word?) to try to make it lower in fat and added-sugar too, leaving out the demerera and the butter. For this reason, there had to be some trials, which my friends have generously leant their tastebuds for over the past few weeks.

I worked on a formula with lots of dates, almonds, walnuts, raisins and a bit of fresh fruit (clementines and apples), some flour and some juice (mango, because that's what was in the fridge) and the christmas spices. Enter Christmas Cake number 1:

Christmas Cake Attempt 1:

So the big problem was that without the eggs, she didn't rise much. At all. Infact she was disappointingly small. To save the icing, but so that it still looked nice, I covered the top with flaked almonds. My tasters liked it alot (because there is no fruitcake in Tunisia, and for many, it had been a while) but it was accepted that without glacier cherries or candied peel or brown sugar, it was just not sweet enough (although, remember people, the 'real' Christmas Cake will get marzipan and icing too). Some people remarked that it tasted weird without the Brandy Sauce - and it was quickly determined that these fools didn't know the difference between Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding and they were swiftly removed from any further tasting panels.

I should now take a bit of time to tell you about, what I like to call "date beasts". Dates are in perfect season here in Tunis at the moment and you can buy them everywhere by the kilo. But beware. For inside maybe 1 in 10, lurks the deadly "date beasts", little monsters from hell that try to eat your date before you get the chance. For this reason, you have to cut all of the dates up carefully and do a full inspection before you can use them. This makes your hands really sticky, but the thrill of the hunt makes up for it.

Christmas Cake Attempt 2:

On the quest for sweetness, and armed with a bag of dried strawberries from Austria, I took a running jump at Christmas Cake number 2, who came along to my baptism party. I doubled up the mixture (which made it REALLY hard to stir) and used a bigger cake tin, which still meant that the height of the cake was a bit sad. This one still didn't have brandy in, as a gesture to my Muslim tasters and because I only have a small bottle of brandy so it would have to be saved for the real cake.

 

This one got a great reception, although it's possible that people were just being nice to me because they were at my party. Who cares? I now had the confidence to go for the Big Daddy.

Christmas Cake Attempt 3:

And here she is, what a beaut! She is receiving weekly brandy showers and she smells like heaven (I have actually put it in a draw in my kitchen and sometimes just open the draw for a quick waft as I walk past.)

 I don't know...I don't want to tempt fate or anything, but she might just be the best ever!