All I Want for Christmas Is Cake

Unlike most Americans, I am actually quite fond of fruitcake, or at least English-style Christmas cake. This year I decided to try to make my own, which was in fact no small undertaking, both literally and figuratively.

By planning ahead, David brought a lot of the dried fruit and candied cherries (1000 grams in total) for the cake in advance from the UK, as I wasn't sure if they'd be available here or extremely expensive. Then, I had to make a special trip to a Western supermarket for almond flour, as well as to Ikea for a springform pan.

Although I made the "medium" version of Nigella Lawson's cake recipe, I would venture to call it large. The dough completely filled up my 23-cm pan and was only prevented from overflowing by the tall parchment paper lining.

After the cake was baked, I discovered I had no container large enough to store it in, so I ended up buying a large box of biscuits (cookies) just so I could use the box. Thankfully, David could fit it into his suitcase as well!

The final step, icing the cake, came once we arrived in England. David's mum very kindly helped me to roll out the marzipan and place it on top of the cake (after brushing with apricot jam). Then we rolled out fondant icing, which went on top after that. With both extra fondant and marzipan, we made star and tree shapes for decorating and eating :)

All in all, making a Christmas cake is quite an ordeal. However, it was fun to try and luckily, it also turned out very well. Who could ever think that cake + liquor + marzipan + sugary icing was bad?!