The Domestic Goddess does Christmas....

The Domestic Goddess does Christmas…

I have no idea what happened. I followed the recipe although as I don’t possess weighing scales I had to do a bit of guesswork with the quantities. Beat the eggs milk and sugar together, folded in the sifted flour, sprinkled in the handful of raisins, handful of  sultanas and two packets of cherries (because I love sticky red cherries in a fruit cake),  bashed it all round in a big saucepan as I don’t seem to possess a mixing bowl either.…  Lots of whiskey was consumed by me and the cake which meant we were both well moisturized. Into the tin with the mixture, into the oven, time to relax in front of the fire with the remains of the whiskey and the Westminster Choir singing Christmas carols. Lovely.

Anyway to cut a long story lengthways, when the cake came out it had risen to a height of   approximately one inch, despite the weight of ingredients in it. It had the density of a Black Hole. All it needed was an event horizon.  So what, I said to myself. There’s good stuff in it.  I’ll ice it anyway.

So I plastered the rich fruity pancake with apricot jam. Then I rolled out the ready-pack of marzipan using a glass since there didn’t seem to be a rolling pin available. The cupboard was devoid of icing sugar as well so I used ordinary sugar- well it’s white; surely the only difference must be the granular density?

After draping the lovely yellow sweet stuff over the cake, I had to do a tricky bit of cutting and pasting- well it’s very awkward trying to fit a covering over a round cake. The marzipan kept falling off the sides of the cake; it just wouldn’t please me by sticking to the bloody apricot jam. I was beginning to get annoyed – in the end I hammered the bloody stuff into the cake with the back of a steel spoon.

Next; the white icing!  (Never be fobbed off with Dundee cake and the like; if someone offers you Christmas cake, it must have marzipan aka almond paste, white icing and be adorned with  at least one of the following; a fir tree, a reindeer or a Santa. Otherwise it’s just plain ordinary fruit cake.)

I followed the instructions to mix the contents of the packet with water and then spread it over the cake with a flat knife. Well, it sorted of poured over the cake actually. Very messy stuff. Very runny. Job finished, I left it on the kitchen counter to set, and went back to the Westminster Choirboys and the whiskey. Baking in a hot kitchen is thirsty work.

Half an hour later, back into the kitchen ready for the final touches; planting the fir tree, the Santa, the eight little reindeer and the sleigh full of toys onto the pristine whiteness…

A winter wonderland awaited me, but not the one I expected… The icing had flowed down over the cake all right. It had continued flowing down over the cake plate, the worktop and the floor.  Icicles of royal icing hung like stalactites from the worktop. I wouldn’t mind, but it STILL hadn’t set.

In the end I used a breadknife to prise the cake plate away from the worktop. The imploded cake supernova was transferred to the waiting plastic container. I stuck my little figurines into the top with all the force of a mountaineer abseiling down a crevasse, and hoped for the best.

I was back with the sofa, the whiskey and the choirboys when a thought struck me; maybe I’d better sample it. Just in case….

What can I say. It tasted as good as it looked.

Compliments of the season, if not compliments to the cook….