Food | Delia's Classic Christmas Cake

This year I'm celebrating Christmas with Dan's family. My brother is coming to join the party too and at  last count I think there is about 24 of us in total, phew! 

In order to make-sure we all share a bit of the Hosting-Christmas-Day load, we're all contributing in one way or another. I'm making the Christmas Cake, along with a few other bits and pieces. And Dan? Well apparently he's "in charge of Lego". Brilliant.

I know Christmas Cake is absolutely not everyone's idea of a good time, it's a bit like Marmite, love it or hate it. I happen to completely LOVE it (but hate Marmite if anyone's taking note). 

Now, I've made Christmas Cake once before. I think I was fairly young, and the only thing I can really remember about the experience was that I definitely used the Classic Delia Recipe (the wholly grail of all Christmas Cake Recipe's apparently), and that icing a Christmas Cake is not as easy as one might think. 

Here's hoping this one fairs a little better!

Making a Christmas Cake isn't hard per-se. It just requires quite a bit of prep work and time! Definitely a job for the weekend.

I made my cake a couple of weeks ago but apparently there's a traditional time to make your Christmas Cakes and Puddings called "Stir-Up Sunday". This is the last Sunday before Advent, so this year it's this weekend - Sunday 24th November. The whole family get's together to prepare the Cake/Pudding and each takes a turn at stirring the mixture whilst making their Christmas Wish. Love that.

I jumped the gun because I got a little worried that:

a) I had no free weekends from early Nov to Christmas and would run out of time, and

b) That just three weeks of "feeding' the cake brandy wouldn't a boozy cake make. 

If you're not an alcoholic like me (kidding Dad), then anytime before Christmas is just fine to make your cake. And also my version is completely not child friendly! In my experience most kids are Christmas Cake Haters, and that's what a Christmas Yule Log is for, right?

Ok, so on to the how-to. Have you got a cuppa handy? This is a long one.

The night BEFORE you want to bake, you need to soak your dried fruit in 3 tablespoons of brandy (or your festive liquor of choice). For some reason I forgot to photograph this but it's pretty straight-forward.

Then the next morning you start by lining your 8" cake tin. You need to make sure you have a deep tin. A sandwich tin will absolutely not work here. I got mine from Sainsbury's for about £5 (they had an offer on). Actually, I got all of the ingredients/materials for this cake from Sainsbury's. So if you have a larger store near you, you can pick up everything in one shop.

Delia says to double-line, but I'm a rebel so just did one (spoiler alert - it turned out fine). 

I started by drawing around the base of the tin on parchment/greaseproof paper, and then guestimating a long strip to go around the perimeter.

Once you have your side-piece the right length, fold over the bottom 1/2 inch and make little cuts in it to enable it to sit flat against the sides of your tin.

I then greased both pieces with some butter and stuck them into the tin. Side piece first, then base.

Now you have to line the outside of your tin. This is so the cake bakes slowly and evenly. You need to wrap some brown paper around the outside and then tie with string.

It will look a bit weird but something like this is fine.

And now, after all that. If you can be bothered it's time to bake!

Preheat your oven to 110-120 (degrees). Delia says 140 for her conventional oven, mine's a fan oven so you need to reduce the temp by about 20 degrees. I was scared so was probably closer to 110 than 120 (it's hard to tell exactly).

Next you cream your butter and sugar together. I went for a mix of dark brown and light brown sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk together your eggs and add to the mix a little at a time.

And then sift in your flour, nutmeg and mixed spice.

At this point you stop with the mixing and fold-in the flour (you're trying to keep as much air from the sifting process as possible).

Then you're ready to add your soaked fruits, chopped almonds, orange and lemon zest (and make your Christmas Wishes!).

Continue to use the same gentle cutting and folding technique.

When it's all combined it's ready to go in your tin.

Spoon it in and level the surface.

Your cake needs a little hat! Take a double sheet of parchment paper wide enough to cover the surface of your tin and cut a hole in the middle. This "hat" will flap around a bit in a fan oven but shouldn't actually fall off.

And then you bake, for a looooong time! Delia says 4 1/2 - 4 3/4 hours, but maybe longer. It's difficult to tell because everyone's oven is different.

I left mine alone for 3 hours and then had a look. It was cooking really slowly so I decided to take it's hat off and look at 4 hours.

At 4 hours in it was looking pretty done but I wanted to try and leave it until the minimum time (4 1/2 hours). At 4 hours, 20 minutes I was scared it would dry out so did the "bounce back" test Delia describes and inserted a clean skewer into the centre of the cake. It came out clean so I decided it was done! It looked like this and smelt amazing. The whole flat smelled like Christmas for a good 6 hours. That's worth your time and energy alone.

I left it in it's tin to cool for a while and then removed the tin to let it cool on a wire rack.

At this point I did the first brandy feed. I made small holes in the top with a skewer and carefully spooned over some brandy (just a few teaspoons). I will be repeating this process every four days until I ice the cake a few days before Christmas.

Finally, when the cake is completely cool it's time to put your Christmas Cake baby to bed.

I laid out two sheets of foil in a cross and then did the same with parchment paper.

I popped my cake in the middle and wrapped it up well. And then put it into an air-tight container.

I gave mine a little wish to be yummy and tasty for us all on Christmas Day and then put it somewhere cool and dry.

And that dear friends is my tale of Christmas Baking. And you know what? It totally got me in the festive spirit. Even Daniel, the Christmas-Cake-Hater, couldn't help but feel Christmassy!

Food | A Naughty Little Chocolate Brownie

Paul Hollywood has a lot to answer for, not only has he helped revive the baking fever that is sweeping our nation, but he is also responsible for the recipe for these rather naughty chocolate brownies.

When I get a brownie craving, nothing but the most chocolatey, cakey, gooey brownie will do, and more often that not I'm left wanting by anything shop bought. 

Luckily this time, I had all the ingredients to knock up a batch of Mr. Hollywood's Chocolate Brownies with Dried Cranberries. And they definitely did not disappoint. Easy to make and outrageously chocolatey, they verge on extremely naughty indeed.

First of all you melt your butter and chocolate over some simmering water.

Keep an eye on it! It doesn't take long before it resembles Willy Wonka's Chocolate River and makes you want to dive right in.

In a separate bowl, with an electric hand-held whisk, beat together your eggs and sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy.

Next add your chocolate mixture to your eggs and sugar.

I love the marbling effect as you combine the two.

Sift in your flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Gently fold in.

Then add your cranberries and nuts (I used roughly chopped pecans instead of walnuts). Fold in,

Pour your mixture in a lined baking tin. The recipe asks for a 20cm square tin but I didn't have one so used this rectangular one which was about 17.5cm x 26cm, it worked out great.

Pop your tin in a pre-heated 180C oven and bake for 25-30 minutes. You know it's done when it look like this, nicely crusted on top but still soft and gooey in the middle.

I'm going off on a tangent here but I love any recipe which means I get to use an electric hand-held whisk. This one is my Mum's original from the 70's. It's kind of heavy and clunky but works like a dream and I'm totally attached to it!

Retro and I love it.

Reminiscing over kitchen equipment from the 70's over, I sliced up my brownies and piled 'em high.

Finish with a wee dusting of icing sugar, if you wish.

Chocolate Heaven.

NB. My batch only yielded 12 not 16.... which means I probably should have sliced them smaller. However,  I'm a greedy little piglet and chose not to. C'est la vie.

Life | Birthday Week

This past week has whizzed by in a whirlwind of Birthday celebrations. 

Dan and I nearly share a birthday, we're just two days apart, with my Dad's in the middle, so it has been a busy week indeed!

We kicked off birthday week with a family dinner at Riverstation. It was a perfect summers night to be sat near the water. 

After dinner the lights were dimmed and my surprise cake arrived!

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is me sat on a rug, in a park, surrounded by approximately nine cats (one for each life?).....my boyfriend has a weird sense of humour but I love it! And I do love cats, it's true, especially these two.

My cake wasn't the only surprise of the night. Annie and Ben asked me to be godmother to their beautiful baby boy Ralph. I'm so touched, and still get a little teary just thinking about it. Look at the little cutie.

Tuesday was the Main Event but unfortunately I had to work during the day. When I arrived home I found a glass of this waiting for me.

Heaven. I sat and chatted to Dan whilst he prepared the most amazing dinner. Oysters, Baked Cod and Lobster Thermidore, and they all tasted amazing!

The following day we were up bright and early and off to the races.

And then on Thursday, disaster struck. We both woke up on Dan's Birthday feeling terrible, some nasty stomach flu was trying to ruin all our birthday fun. All my big plans for the day had to be abandoned in favour of sleep and rest.

By Saturday we were (almost) back on form. The day of Dan's Birthday BBQ! Luckily the weather held out just long enough to get the food cooked and our friends more than made up for what we were lacking in party spirit!

                  

Dan's "birthday cake" was actually a cheese cake! He doesn't love real cake (strange, I know, I could eat it daily), but does love cheese. There were four layers; goats cheese, barkham blue, cheddar and the smelliest brie I've ever come across, it tasted good though. And we will now be eating cheese for weeks!

Then there was one more birthday surprise for me! My lovely friends had clubbed together to buy me some treats....I love them so much (my friends and the presents)!

 Check out my Tory Birch pumps and Alexander McQueen leopard print scarf! I still can't believe they all did this. I feel so special and completely spoilt.

And what was Dan's pressie from me? This rather handsome Daniel Wellington Bristol watch. I fell in love with the classic and minimalist design but also the story behind the watches. There's a design available for quite a few different cities around the UK. 

 By the time the last glass had been washed and put away, there was only one way to finish birthday week...... 

 xxx

P.S. I have to thank Jenna's Instagram and Mel's Facebook for a lot of these photo's, without them it would have been a very dull post, thanks girls!