My Mums Christmas Cake Food

I don't think I ever saws my Mom make a cake from a mix; she was a superb baker and all around cook, but lovingly remembered for her wonderful Christmas creations (let alone Easter!) amongst which is this rich and lovely Christmas Cake, that I can share with you. In attempting this one, you need remember that it was "always on a budget", so the cherries, peel, etc are not the ones packed in expensive syrupy fluid, but rather the cheaper "candied" ones, often bought in today's "Bulk Barn"... Mom never advocated drinking, but using white rum or brandy in place of the pineapple juice was not unusual, I just can't imagine her writing that out for dissemination in the family reunion cookbook I'm pulling this up from... Where "fruit" is mentioned as an ingredient, most often this meant currants, in semi-dried form, but I'll go out on a limb and suggest chopped dried apricots would work well, too...(remember, this is a "heritage" recipe, Mom was into her 20's in the Dirty Thirties, when you worked from the cheapest ingredients, and there weren't a lot of choices!)

Provided by John DOH

Categories     Dessert

Time 3h25m

Yield 6-8 serving(s)

Number Of Ingredients 15

• Ingredients

Instructions for cooking much quicker boiled fruit cake given below also. Mum used to make a boiled fruit cake often, sometimes with drained crushed pineapple in the mixture.

Provided by Ninna

Categories     Dessert

Time 3h40m

Yield 1 Christmas cake

Number Of Ingredients 14

• Ingredients

Nutrition Facts : Calories 6780.6, Fat 247.2, SaturatedFat 127.3, Cholesterol 1334, Sodium 3306.2, Carbohydrate 1049.2, Fiber 51.9, Sugar 687.2, Protein 98.9

This delightful Christmas cake is traditionally rich, moist and full of flavour, it's probably as old as the hills! It came from my mother's old hand written recipe book written well before the last World War. Mum told me that she got it from her mother and even then it was called mums best Christmas cake - so we wonder just how many generations this goes back. If only recipes could talk what tales they could tell. The only alteration I have made to this cake is to cut the eggs down from 6 to 5 as eggs these days are so big compared to years ago. The ingredients were carefully saved over a few months as rationing was on for many years and this cake always took pride of place for afternoon tea on Christmas day. This cake is so well worth taking the time to make it, I have cut down the amount of eggs to 5 as eggs these days are so much larger than they used to be.

Provided by JoyfulCook

Categories     Fruit

Time 3h45m

Yield 12-14 serving(s)

Number Of Ingredients 13

• Ingredients