Christmas Cake

Today I made my Christmas cake, much later than usual as can be seen from my journal entry for 4 November 2011. Today the cake is still in its tin and it is still too hot to remove yet; all the protective paper has been removed. It does not look as good as the one I hope to have a piece of on Christmas Day.

Not too late though as today is 'Stir-up-Sunday, the last Sunday before advent. Strictly speaking, it was traditional to make Christmas puddings on this day, rather than the cake, but as far as I am concerned this will be soon enough for our cake. I have made the one from the Waitrose 'Delia' recipe card for the last two years, it is very simple to make, although I doubt if Delia would recognise mine.

It does not include any nuts or peel and is made with gluten-free flour; the nuts and peel are made up using extra glacé cherries and golden syrup is substituted for treacle syrup. We do not have marzipan nor icing on our cake and neither do we stick blanched almonds on the top.

It has been sunny today although chilly and looked very overcast this afternoon. The final F1 race had lots of excitement right up until the end; now we have to wait until March 2013 for it to start again.

This extract has been taken from the John Lewis website which can be found here.

Traditionally, Christmas puddings were always made on Stir-up Sunday. This is the last Sunday before advent begins and this year, it falls on November 25th. It was the day when everyone in the family took a turn to stir the pudding, making a wish whilst they stirred, and stirring the mixture from East to West to represent the three wise men who visited baby Jesus. Another tradition was to place a sixpence coin in the mixture (if you do this, remember to wrap it in greaseproof paper to avoid any choking). It was believed to have brought wealth to the lucky finder!