I am waiting to be a Domestic Goddess again...
The post has come. Bothersome letter from the GP, package for ravenrigan, no parcel from Goodness Direct...
Carrier has come with large box for ravenrigan from Virgin Wine: probably her new wine-tasting kit that we thught would come tomorrow! Nothing from Goodness Direct...
I want my parcel! It should contain Lexia raisins (a bugger to get round here!) and gluten free vegetarian 'suet' for my Christmas puds, plus ground almonds for them and the marzipan, chocolate for coating cakes and ginger chunks...
Bums! I want to Get On with things!
I may just weigh out all the other ingredients for the puds, and start on the Black Bun.
On the list this year:
Dark Christmas Cake: 4
Chocolate Christmas Cake: 4 (one ring, two 6" ones, and a 7" one)
Christmas Puddings: 9 or 10, but mostly small ones
Stollen: probably 4
Black Bun: 2
Buche de Noel: 1
Shortbread: 4 or 5 rounds
Cranberry and orange sauce with red wine : 6 or so jars...
Mincemeat: I may have enough, but need to check.
And I need to bottle the sloe and damson gin from a couple or three years back.
Chocolate coated marzipan balls
Chocolate coated ginger (I will buy this if I can get the good stuff, because it's a skiddle to make it come out without a 'bloom' on the chocolate)
Yesterday I did the first 8 Christmas cakes: four chocolate ones and 4 traditional dark ones.
The ingredients list looks impressive!
The Chocolate Christmas Cake recipe is one I found in The Radio Times of 15-21 October 1914, so was 'idle reading' when strapping Lad(TM) was a brand new cherub. I've made it nearly every year since.
As it's a Tesco ad, they specify Tesco brand products, but any equivalent will do. I prefer a 70% cocoa solids chocolate to cake covering on the outside, and use things like Green 7 Blacks. This year it's been Ikea's dark choc, which is pretty good. I never bother with Grande Marnier either: cooking brandy does just as well! And I make my own marzipan.
Once I have dug out all the ingredients, and put the fruit to soak over night, I tackle the cake tins.
Yes, I cheat, and for everything except the smallest tine I use ready-made liners! It takes minutes to line 8 cake tins rather than an hour.
I make one lot of this chocolate cake mixture.
It is supposed to fill one 10" spring-form ring tin. Now that's a big tin, I know, but I'm telling you that quantity would over flow my 10" deep tin without the hole in the middle! That mixing bowl is the size of a washing up bowl... I pack the mix down firmly in one 8" savarin tin, one 7" solid tin, and two 6" ones. And I mean pack it down.
No, I don't make a hollow in the middle for it to rise. This cake doesn't rise. It's held up by internal scafolding! Look, there's over 3lbs of fruit, a pound of nuts, 11 ounces of chocolate, and only 4 ounces of flour in it. OK, there are five eggs, but... This thing wouldn't rise if you hoisted it up with a fork-lift truck! But I can fit all four in the oven with ease.
Cooked: see! No rise!
Once in the oven, I loaded the dishwasher with what would fit or could be dishwashered, and washed up the hand-cranked load... Yup, that's a 14" frying pan in the mixing bowl!
Once they were out of the way, I started on the dark Christmas cakes. I'd weighed them all out the night before, too, in a fit of 'I need to be busy because the boy is out late' pinging off the walls.
This one is a recipe from Katie Stewart's Times Cookery Book, First published in 1972. It has wonderful drawings by Pauline Bayes, who illustrated the Narnia books. There are NO photos of the food, which is excellent. As my Weight Watchers leader Jen says, 'if there's no picture, then however yours turns out is how it's supposed to look!'
Mine turned out just fine.
In the interests of efficiency and ecconomy, I cooked the dinner along with this batch of cake! It also meant we got Sunday Roast dinner some time before midnight! We had a half leg of local lamb, which I put in the small roasting tin, along with half a bottle of red wine... I sealed it up with tinfoil and put it in the oven at 150C while I mixed the cakes...
After an hour of cooking, I swapped the cakes round so the ones on the top shelf swapped places with the ones on the bottom, and put a dish of root vegetables in beside the lower lot. Once the cakes were done, I put the veg up beside the meat for 20 minutes and turned the heat up. The crumble pudding went in under them.
The cakes looked really good, and the combined smells of roasting lamb and spicy cake and crumble filled me with anticipation!
The lamb and the pudding were delicious, though I probably shouldn't be boasting! And with eight cakes awaiting marzipan and chocolate or icing, I feel like I am well on the way. I shall now go and start weighing out ingredients for the puddings. If I can get them mixed before bed tonight, they can stand over night and be cooked tomorrow. Christmas pudding is always better if left to think for a night before first boiling.
Carrier has come with large box for ravenrigan from Virgin Wine: probably her new wine-tasting kit that we thught would come tomorrow! Nothing from Goodness Direct...
I want my parcel! It should contain Lexia raisins (a bugger to get round here!) and gluten free vegetarian 'suet' for my Christmas puds, plus ground almonds for them and the marzipan, chocolate for coating cakes and ginger chunks...
Bums! I want to Get On with things!
I may just weigh out all the other ingredients for the puds, and start on the Black Bun.
On the list this year:
Dark Christmas Cake: 4
Chocolate Christmas Cake: 4 (one ring, two 6" ones, and a 7" one)
Christmas Puddings: 9 or 10, but mostly small ones
Stollen: probably 4
Black Bun: 2
Buche de Noel: 1
Shortbread: 4 or 5 rounds
Cranberry and orange sauce with red wine : 6 or so jars...
Mincemeat: I may have enough, but need to check.
And I need to bottle the sloe and damson gin from a couple or three years back.
Chocolate coated marzipan balls
Chocolate coated ginger (I will buy this if I can get the good stuff, because it's a skiddle to make it come out without a 'bloom' on the chocolate)
Yesterday I did the first 8 Christmas cakes: four chocolate ones and 4 traditional dark ones.
The ingredients list looks impressive!
The Chocolate Christmas Cake recipe is one I found in The Radio Times of 15-21 October 1914, so was 'idle reading' when strapping Lad(TM) was a brand new cherub. I've made it nearly every year since.
As it's a Tesco ad, they specify Tesco brand products, but any equivalent will do. I prefer a 70% cocoa solids chocolate to cake covering on the outside, and use things like Green 7 Blacks. This year it's been Ikea's dark choc, which is pretty good. I never bother with Grande Marnier either: cooking brandy does just as well! And I make my own marzipan.
Once I have dug out all the ingredients, and put the fruit to soak over night, I tackle the cake tins.
Yes, I cheat, and for everything except the smallest tine I use ready-made liners! It takes minutes to line 8 cake tins rather than an hour.
I make one lot of this chocolate cake mixture.
It is supposed to fill one 10" spring-form ring tin. Now that's a big tin, I know, but I'm telling you that quantity would over flow my 10" deep tin without the hole in the middle! That mixing bowl is the size of a washing up bowl... I pack the mix down firmly in one 8" savarin tin, one 7" solid tin, and two 6" ones. And I mean pack it down.
No, I don't make a hollow in the middle for it to rise. This cake doesn't rise. It's held up by internal scafolding! Look, there's over 3lbs of fruit, a pound of nuts, 11 ounces of chocolate, and only 4 ounces of flour in it. OK, there are five eggs, but... This thing wouldn't rise if you hoisted it up with a fork-lift truck! But I can fit all four in the oven with ease.
Cooked: see! No rise!
Once in the oven, I loaded the dishwasher with what would fit or could be dishwashered, and washed up the hand-cranked load... Yup, that's a 14" frying pan in the mixing bowl!
Once they were out of the way, I started on the dark Christmas cakes. I'd weighed them all out the night before, too, in a fit of 'I need to be busy because the boy is out late' pinging off the walls.
This one is a recipe from Katie Stewart's Times Cookery Book, First published in 1972. It has wonderful drawings by Pauline Bayes, who illustrated the Narnia books. There are NO photos of the food, which is excellent. As my Weight Watchers leader Jen says, 'if there's no picture, then however yours turns out is how it's supposed to look!'
Mine turned out just fine.
In the interests of efficiency and ecconomy, I cooked the dinner along with this batch of cake! It also meant we got Sunday Roast dinner some time before midnight! We had a half leg of local lamb, which I put in the small roasting tin, along with half a bottle of red wine... I sealed it up with tinfoil and put it in the oven at 150C while I mixed the cakes...
After an hour of cooking, I swapped the cakes round so the ones on the top shelf swapped places with the ones on the bottom, and put a dish of root vegetables in beside the lower lot. Once the cakes were done, I put the veg up beside the meat for 20 minutes and turned the heat up. The crumble pudding went in under them.
The cakes looked really good, and the combined smells of roasting lamb and spicy cake and crumble filled me with anticipation!
The lamb and the pudding were delicious, though I probably shouldn't be boasting! And with eight cakes awaiting marzipan and chocolate or icing, I feel like I am well on the way. I shall now go and start weighing out ingredients for the puddings. If I can get them mixed before bed tonight, they can stand over night and be cooked tomorrow. Christmas pudding is always better if left to think for a night before first boiling.
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