Tag Archives: brandy

It’s starting to smell a lot like Christmas……….. cake….

Posted in Baking, Christmas, Photography by

So yes it’s that time of year again. My fruit had been soaking in booze for a good few days so I took my cue from the wet and grey Sunday afternoon to get baking the first of 6 Christmas cakes.

I’m not sure what the blog etiquette is for annual posts but here are the links to my previous posts for Christmas cake and the boozy fruit that goes in it.

Delia Christmas cake

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Brandy Soaked Fruit

Posted in Baking, Christmas by

Is it too soon to mention the C word?…….I hope not! I try to make my Christmas cake by mid October and have been using Delia’s Classic Christmas Cake recipe for some years now having made a few tweaks to suit my own tastes. I definitely stand on the Mary Berry side where alcohol in cakes/desserts is concerned and frankly more is more. Delia suggests a quite stingy 45ml brandy while Mary goes for 150ml so I’m edging up towards Mary’s measure!

To get started I like to soak the fruit for 5-7 days before baking the cake. Delia only soaks hers overnight though so if you are short on time, overnight is fine. And some cooks swear by a month or more soaking so start it whenever you have the time. For readers in the UK, Asda currently have 500g bags of dried fruit on 3 for 2 promotion so thats my cue to get soaking fruit.

Brandy Soaked Christmas cake fruit Continue reading →