Skip to main content

Christmas cakes


I finally got around to icing the Christmas cakes, but I think the mince pies will have to be a new year's event instead.  Well, and why not?  Following the tradition of recent years, I baked a large square cake from Nigella's recipe in How to Be a Domestic Goddess, cut it in half and iced each part separately.  This has the dual advantages of providing more icing and making the cake keep better.  Not that it ever seems to keep that long.

Long thin cakes lend themselves to long thin decorations, do they not?


Or else to digging out that old standby, the Christmas cookie cutters.  Every year I think I might do something really fancy, and then I run out of time and think, well, the important thing is that it tastes good!

Merry Christmas!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

St Editha's Way, day 2

For the first day of St Editha's Way, see here . I had walked from Polesworth to Tamworth and stayed in Tamworth overnight. Today, the journey continued to Lichfield. I think I was the only person staying in the hotel last night. Certainly I was the only person having breakfast. I felt a little sorry for the two men who had had to get up early to cook and serve it to their one and only customer. Tamworth Castle, Monday morning St Ruffin's Well was mentioned on the pilgrimage brochure as a place to see. I hadn't found it yesterday, so I went back to the castle area to take a look. I don't think there's been a well there for a long time, but there is a plaque tacked on to the wall of the shopping centre, giving an approximate location. I also wandered over to Borrowpit Lake while I was waiting for St Editha's Church to open. St Editha's, Tamworth, is a very impressive building. Tall arches, painted ceilings, and modern wooden partitions for cafe and shop areas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ten books that shaped my life

Ten books that shaped my life in some way.  Now that wasn't a problem.  I scanned the bookshelves and picked out nine favourites without the slightest difficulty (the tenth took a little longer). The problem was that, on the Facebook challenge, I wasn't supposed to explain why .  Nope.  Having picked out my ten, I couldn't let them go without saying why they were special to me. These books are more than a collection of words by an author.  They are particular editions of those words - taped-up, egg-stained, dust-jacketless and battered - which have come into my life, been carried around to different homes, and become part of who I am. How to Be a Domestic Goddess Well, every woman needs an instruction manual, doesn't she? Nigella's recipes mean lazy Saturday mornings eating pancakes, comforting crumbles on a rainy night, Christmas cakes, savoury onion pies and mounds of bread dough.  If you avoid the occasional extravagance (20 mini Bundt tins...
3 comments
Read more

Unto us a son is given...

Did I mention something about life getting back to normal in October? Oh yes, I was just finishing work and looking forward to at least two weeks off to organise the house, stock up the freezer and buy baby stuff. Then little Toby threw a spanner in the works by turning up five weeks early! Which would put his birthday in... let's see... October. So much for normal! For those who would like the gory details, here goes. If you are a mother who had a long and protracted labour, I advise you to skip the next bit - or if you don't, please don't start sending me hate mail. You have been warned. You see, we'd been to all the childbirth classes (yes, just about managed to finish them) and learned all about the different stages of labour, and how many hours each lasted. We learned some relaxation techniques and various things Graham could do to help coach me through long periods of contractions. And then we turned out not to need any of them, because the entire thing...
3 comments
Read more