We were always Christmas bugs, now we have Sophie, Ali and i are really enjoying the value of Christmas, its has more fun, anticipation and excitement and we feel were giving the gift of a memory of our own family Christmas to Sophie for her to remember when she is older. Althought Ali and I are still finding our feet with working out all those little touches and bringing them together to make a special day. The last 10 years we have been spoilt rotten by Ali's mum and dad who have had us to their house every year and fed us and have show that with the years of experience how smoothly the day and the build up to the day goes, they are so calm and experienced and we have a lot to aspire to.
Last year Was our very first family Christmas with Sophie but she was really poorly as you can see from the picture and still young being 1 years old was wondering what was going on, so we made the best of it. This year we hope she wont be ill and she has certainly got the idea of presents. Ali and I pre organised as much as possible and each has dedicated roles one of mine was making the Christmas cake (pic below of 2010's cake) which i had started making the
boozy fruit for at the end of the summer. I had that year been watching the Great British bake off show and had opted to make one of the finalist version of a Christmas cake as she really inspired me. So i got the recipe and followed it to the letter. i decorated and was so very proud of my cake.
I saved the Cake for a special cutting and eating in honour of Alis mum and dad coming to visit us and i was feeling great to have made our first cake and share it with the two people who had for the last 10 years shared their Christmas magic with us. i made a big brew of tea and got out my nicest plates and feeling nervous cake into my cake and served it up. Everyone had a slice and got tucked in. The faces of everyone while munching were a picture not what i had expected and i knew something was wrong, everyone was so polite saying it was nice, but it was a disaster. Instead of cake i had made an boozy bread pudding. Alis dad made me laugh saying at least my cake wasn't dry. I had also forgotten to take off a circle of greaseproof paper from the top and had iced it into the cake which just made the whole thing even worse as everyone was eating soft boozy paper in the cake which actually tasted nicer than the cake. Awful just awful.
This year am now on a quest to find the Christmas cake recipe which i will have in my tried and tested collection of recipe that is a success, if i find it. Below is my next recipe i am trying i hope it works.
So with my new recipe i carefully measured out all the ingredients before hand while Sophie was having her sleep.
Then when the lady was awake and ready to go she helped make the cake, we went through all the ingredients naming them and she chopped the butter ready for creaming with the sugar and added all the ingredients to the bowl. She was so good and kind to help she even stayed to help with cleaning the mixer and bowl
After 3 hours of baking the house was full of the smell of Christmas spices and baking and finally the cake was cooked. When it cooled i put holes in it and a tbsp of brandy and i will feed the cake for a few weeks once a week and hope that this year i have actually made a cake and not bread pudding again. I have been a smart cookie though i made a cake and a half so we could munch into the smaller one before Christmas, i'm so glad i did this as this all for testing reasons of course, but the small one went down well and wasn't like bread pudding and wasn't dry so i hope the big one will be good too.
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