Let us top off your Christmas Bake

Aahhh - the big Christmas bake. The smells that take over the whole house. The larder bursting full of ingredients. And the taste as you scrape the bowl... All the time slightly nervous that the edge of the Christmas cake is just about to burn, because it seems to have been in the oven all day long! Yes, the big Christmas bake is definitely the best time of year if you love your food!

Traditional Christmas Baking

It used to be a tradition to start preparing the Christmas cake during the Autumn half term holidays. A topic of conversation for the mums at the school gate. And then we so looked forward to getting those little silver balls and ribbons ready to decorate it once we’d iced it. Arguments as to who's turn it was to place Father Christmas safely in pride of place.

Mary Berry, Delia Smith, even Mrs Beeton from c 1861! Their recipes are still the firm favourites. Raisins, currants, berries, cherries, muscavado (brown) sugar, nuts, oranges, butter, eggs, plain flour, black treacle, almonds, mixed spice. The list seems endless.

So, have you had your fruit soaking for weeks? Do you keep checking and giving the mixture a good stir? Great, if you have. But if you haven’t started yet, and it’s just something else to add to the ‘not yet ticked off in 2020’ list, panic not. It’s not too late to start your big Christmas bake!

There are plenty of ‘last minute’ Christmas cake recipes to tempt you. You won’t need to soak your fruit for the same length of time you would with a standard recipe, and the baking time will also be slightly shorter. So, you’ll have time to concentrate on the rest of your bake!

This year it’s obviously going to be slightly different. With smaller family gatherings than usual, if you're a novice baker, perhaps this year is the best time to bring out your inner Delia or Mary and show everyone what you can do!

You’ll not be alone. In fact, according to BBC News, home baking was one of the top eight things that kept us going during Lockdown #1 in the UK.

And, of course, GBBO  is being screened at the perfect time to bring us back into our kitchens ready to prepare for Christmas.

Christmas Baking Ideas

From Baileys cheesecake to snowman cupcakes, Stollen to truffles, there are so many choices. But here's a few of our favourites.

Gingerbread houses - making these is such good fun. Weighing out, mixing, rolling, cutting. Sitting around waiting for the gingerbread to cool down before you can actually build the house. And the decoration. Marshmallows, Dolly Mixtures and Smarties with white icing are the quickest things to use. And there will always be one of the slants of the roof that defies gravity and looks as if its about to give way any minute. Yet somehow, it will still be standing when it comes to showing it off to your friends (if we're allowed to this year)!

Gingerbread houses now even come with a very real looking fire burning inside, gingerbread trucks, and gingerbread cottages that are made from chocolate Rice Krispies – I kid you not!

It's such an exciting time, and a great way of keeping the little ones occupied.

Yule Logs – always a competition to see who can lather the chocolate icing on to the cake the thickest! I used to love baking these at school, because by the time I got home, there was chocolate all over the inside of the tin which of course had to be eaten!

Mince Pies – apparently, these were only for the very wealthy in olden times. As a child I could never understand the concept of "mince meat" in something sweet. But baking mince pies seems to bring back so many lovely memories for us all. Don’t sneeze as you’re sieving the icing sugar! And don’t forget to get the kids involved – cutting out shapes for the tops of your mince pies as stars, hearts, full lids or just any shape they can create –  and of course leave the best one out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Cookies – cookies are often baked at Christmas to hand out to friends and neighbours. Decorated in all sorts of styles and shapes such as Christmas trees, reindeer, Santa with his big red hat, or exciting looking presents. They’re still generally baked with spicy ingredients as they always have been, and there’s just something about fresh baked cookies and hot chocolate that brings the real Christmas feeling out in all of us.

Let us top off your Christmas bake

As a child, when it came to decorating our goodies, we were just happy to have the thickest of the marzipan (well, that was where most of the alcohol soaked into) or the rock-hard, snow-peak icing that Mum or Gran had spent hours perfecting on top of the Christmas cake with her palette knife. Not sure they ever realised it could have cracked your teeth! But now, decorating has become an art form for some, but can really worry others who don't have that same level of expertise!

The Christmas bake should be fun. And we know just how to add the finishing touches to your Christmas table, with our festive decorations and cake toppers. Circular, square, rectangular or based on your dimensions; flat or stand-up designs on edible icing sheets or rice paper, your Christmas cake, cookies and cupcakes will create a buzz on your social media. And you can even personalise them with a favourite photo if you wanted to make Christmas 2020 really special.

So, even if you burnt the top of your cake, or your cookies look totally non-Christmassy, you still have time to place your orders and we will do all we can to top off your Christmas bake and make it look spectacular!