Christmas Black cake (Rum cake)

[pinchofcinnamon]

Comments

[faithsdiary]

I usually make my christmas cake (British that is) in september, the fruit is soaked overnight in cold tea (or brandy). Once the cake is cooked and cooled it is packed in paper to mature. To help with the maturing it is opened and 'fed' once a week by poking holes in it and using a teaspoon pouring brandy into the holes, it's re covered and then the following week I open it, turn it over and feed the otherside. I do that for about 6 weeks. Icing the cake takes around 2 weeks to a month depending on the kind of icing I'm using. But in anycase the cake is brushed with apricot jam and covered with marzipan and then left to dry for a week. If I'm using fondant icing then i just roll that out and put it on the cake and polish it and leave to dry for a week before putting any decorations on it.

If I'm using royal icing then once the marzipan has dried a thin layer of icing is put on and left to dry, then a few days later another layer is added and so on until the icing is quite thick, usually 4 layers is enough to get the cake perfectly smooth. Once the last layer is dried then the final decorations can be put on. It's time consuming but has a better finish I think than the fondant icing, it does it does set really hard.

Over here it is tradtional to have the same sort of cake for a wedding though it would be in tiers, and it is traditionl to keep the top tier to be re iced for the first babies christening.

[pinchofcinnamon]

wow, that's fascinating
I heard about 'feeding' before but never in detail
will try all these next year, thank you!