Big and boozy
on December 14, 2008
in misc
Haven’t we gone slightly mad? We’ve made a Christmas cake. We are now making it drunk. Regularly, twice a week, with brandy. It took us good two hours to get the ingredients ready, three more hours to bake, and now half an hour a session of methodical feeding it with booze. For this is the cake to have for Christmas rather than those dry and gritty popyseed rolls. The smells it gives off while it’s baking make us want it now and again.
We like to make our Christmas cake a couple of weeks in advance and then ply it with alcohol to keep it moist and boozy. Brandy is the spirit we use, because we think its flavour works well with the fruit, but whisky would work, too. To get the booze into the cake, we pierce the underside deeply with a knitting needle, or skewer, or thin screwdriver, then pour a little brandy into the holes. We wrap the cake tightly in greaseproof paper and then in foil or clingfilm and place it in a large container. Covered, it will be fine for several weeks. To get moist, flavoursome results we feed the cake every three or four days for two weeks.
