I do not usually make a Christmas cake as there is just too much fiddling and chopping and soaking and lining of pans and hanging around for hours while it cooks. Also there are other members of the family who love to do it and do a fabulous job with a finished product that includes the layer of marzipan and royal icing and ribbons and holly. Last year my sister trialed an alternative type of cake, the Sri Lankan Christmas cake from the repertoire of Charmaine Solomon. It is heavy with glace fruit and redolent with cardamon and rosewater and uses semolina instead of flour. I thought it the most wondrous cake on earth when I tried it so decided this year to make one. The afternoon of last Saturday was set aside. I did my chopping and soaking in advance and my sister came and painstakingly lined and relined the pans with layer upon layer of brown paper and baking paper. We even bought red tins to add a festive feel to the procedure.


The mixture was enormous and I had it in two big bowls to make the combining of wet and dry ingredients a little easier. I ended up beig able to make a second smaller loaf size cake as well as the big one.

Some people are born to do things properly and my sister is one of them. I am the slap dash sibling.




Because of the high sugar content it has to cook for close to 4 hours on 125 C. It did seem to take an age and I was sticking my skewer in at very regular intervals in my usual impatient fashion, willing it to hurry up and be done.

I would say it is cooked to perfection but the unvailing and taste test is still a month away so it is all wrapped up in a vintage Xmas apron, hidden away so no one is tempted to have a pre emptive early nibble.

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