The cake is officially in the oven

Oh this all sounds good idea to me Might have a trip to sainsburys this week. Tillymint do you mind me asking how much you were for the two kits? I have just texted OH to ask him to look in Tesco for the kit and get a price for me there too

Made my own one year from a Mary Berry recipe. Trouble is, no one likes christmas cake in my family so it would just be a waste now.

The cake kit is £9.99 & the icing kit is £4.99...... The tin was £6 in Sainsburys too,

I left mine in the oven for 3 1/2 hours, it's just cooling & I'm errr having to pick some burnt fruit off the edges

Why bother making one when there are so many lovely, already made ones in the shops?

Mind you, that's just because I don't see the point in making one.

Yes I agree! We bought a delicious one last year from a Christmas fair at Blickling Hall in Norfolk (National Trust) and it was the nicest Christmas cake I have ever eaten-really moist and not too much icing which I don't like. It was also beautifully decorated with the 3 Magi on.

You can't do worse than me though Tillymint-I made and decorated a cake once and used gelatine instead of glycerine in the icing and it set like cement!
I remember my Mum scooping the cake out and then she put the icing shell out for the birds to eat! Poor birds-I hope they didn't try to eat this as they would have got broken beaks

This reminds me of something I made some years ago. I can't remember what it was called, but it had an almond meringue base with cream and cherries on, and was topped with a lattice of more almond meringue. I don’t know what I did to the meringue but it was like eating a manhole cover.

I tend to go for Dundee cakes for Christmas as I like fruit cake to be a bit lighter than the traditional Christmas cake. Other half also don't like marzipan unless it's round a Battenburg... don't ask me why that makes a difference, I don't know.

When I got married 26 years ago (oops! that long?) my best friend bought me Delia's traditional recipe book. It is still going, and it is my bible in the kitchen.

There is a lovely Christmas cake recipe in there. It is quite an extensive recipe, have a look on google to see if it's there. If not, give me a shout and i'll type it out for you.

Good Luck x

I iced the cake today & am really pleased with it
I used the icing kit with marzipan & apricot jam.
It smells lovely
Ta daaaa.....



Didn't know what to do with the left over icing & marzipan so I made some snow people with marzipan hats


We won't eat them though as one has a dog hair embedded in it's face

Looks very nice! Snow people are good too (apart from the dog hair ).