the cake

Christmas cake is a very hard thing, both as a baker and an eater. I suppose, as with all food, it's about personal preferences. Dark or light? Heavy? Moist and crumbly? Nuts or not? Gross red cherry things or not? Boozy? Citrusy? Jammy, figgy puddin' cake?

I find it really hard to do christmas cake. The time and the cost make me hesitate, and then the recipe variations are too many. I've really yet to find my true cake, the one I would make every year forever. The christmas cake my grandchildren would remember me by. I'm still trying.

But, of course I had to make something for my customers. So we have cake. It has no butter in the recipe and heaps of soaked, boozy fruit. The cake is really just there to hold the fruit together. It's a nice cake, baked weeks ago and aged as it should be. I was worth it (the trouble, time, effort and stress), but I want better.

What's my perfect christmas cake? I think it is not light or dark, but a golden medium colour cake, with moist, juicy fruits of all kinds, even cherries. It also has walnuts and the fragrant hint of marzipan. It is crumbly and cakey, not a heavy fruity brick. And no white icing.

Once I made a marzipan fruit cake from a Nigella recipe I think it was. I'm searching it out now, for my second wind of christmas cakes in the bakery. I'll be doing a 'quick Christmas cake' for the last two weeks in December, a bit cheaper than the Christmas cake, because it's more a simple fruit cake. In fact that's probably where I'm going wrong in my quest. I'm reading Christmas cake recipes, when I really want to get myself a brilliant fruit cake recipe.

The same issues can arise when making fruit mince pies. But for me this is easier, because I know how I like my fruit mince pies to be and so I make them that way. Pastry with a bit of baking powder and egg, so it's cakey, light and soft. It creates a gentle pillow around the fruit and carries it beautifully into your mouth. And warmed with cream it's like a little sweet pudding from heaven.

But I've had criticism about my style of pies, from my very own household even. All I can say is there's no right or wrong, it's a preference. Shortcrust mince pies and light christmas cake are fine for some people, dark, heavy cake and soft pillow pies for others. I just hope I've got enough cuatomers who like my christmas style, and then enough pies and cakes for those who do!