Christmas Cake And Icings

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29067, 2 December 1959, Page 3

Christmas Cake And Icings

An iced cake seems an integral part of the food prepared foi; Christmas. Foods pictured as synonymous with the traditional British Christmas are usually turkey, with attendant stuffings, plum pudding regally ablaze and crowned with holly, mince pies and a large decorative iced fruit cake. Strangely enough, although there is tradition relating to much of this type of food, the Christmas cake is a relative newcomer; it appears to owe its existence to the need at holiday time for a cake that keeps well, cuts well, and fits in with the general pattern of rich foods. Christmas cake probably came into being as the necessary standby for the housewife harassed by unexpected holiday visitors, and is a cake equally suitable to serve with a glass of wine or a cup of tea.

The following recipes come from the Home Science Extension, Department of Adult Education, University of .Otago.

Christmas Cake Ingredients: 9oz butter Boz sugar (4oz white, 4oz brown) 5-6 eggs (depending on size) Joz cornflour 1 pint water 1 lemon 1 small orange 31b cake fruit (e.g., 11b sultanas, 11b currants, jib raisins, Jib peel, jib glace cherries) 12oz flour 1 teaspoon mixed spice 1 teaspoon cocoa Pinch salt Jib walnuts or almonds

Method: Cream butter with sugar and beat eggs. Combine cornflour and water as boiling water starch and cool. Grate the rind and squeeze the juice from, the orange and lemon. Clean, dry and cut up the cake fruits. Sift together the flour, mixed spice, cocoa and salt. Chop up (blanch if necessary) the walnuts or almonds. Now beat the eggs gradually into the butter and sugar mixture. Stir in the starch paste, fruit juices and rind and add a few drops of almond essence (if almonds are omitted). Last of all add fruit and nuts. Bake this mixture in a 10-12-inch tin lined with brown paper and greaseproof paper for five hours. The oven temperature should be 300 degrees, reduced to 250 degrees after the first hour. The addition of brandy or rum to the cake improves the flavour and keeping qualities. The best way to add spirits is to prick the cake with a fine steel knitting needle after it is cooked and cooled, and pour the spirits over two or three tablespoons are sufficient for the average-size cake. Adding brandy or rum to the cake mixture before baking is not economic—alcohol is volatile and so lost during cooking.

Almond Paste Nothing can take the place of almond paste made with ground almonds with regard to texture or flavour, but there are a number of substitute almond pastes that are less expensive to make. An almond-flavoured plastic icing can be used, or a substitute paste made from soya bean flour, cake crumbs or even semolina! The almond paste must be attached to the cake; the usual way to do this is to brush the outside of the cake with warmed sieved apricot jam or marmalade, or with egg white; plastic icing also needs to be stuck to the cake and egg white is used for this. Ingredients: jib ground almonds 41b icing or castor sugar (or Jib of each, i.e. 11b sugar for a sweeter and more economical paste) 1 teaspoon vanilla essence I.teaspoon almond essence Juice of half a lemon 1-2 eggs or 3 egg yolks

Method: Mix together almonds and sugar and work to a firm doueh with the remaining ingredient? Knead well. Roll out, using icing sugar to prevent the paste sticking. m

Plastic Icing Ingredients: lib icing sugar 1 egg white 4oz warmed liquid glucose

Method: Sift Icing sugar into warmed basin and mix to a firm dough with the egg white and glucose. Knead icing well (it helps if the basin is kept standing in warm water). This type of icing is rolled out, using sifted icing sugar to prevent it sticking. Cornflour on the hands makes handling the icing easier. This icing is rolled and cut to the shape of the cake on the board; the pieces are then lifted and pressed into position, as with almond paste. Royal Icing This is the nicest of icings when well made. Many say that it hardens too, much, but this can be overcome by adding a little glycerine. To ensure that white icing is really white, blue is added (ordinary household blue) to counteract the natural colour of the egg whites which make the icing a creamy colour. The quantity of blue added must be carefully gauged, too much will give the icing a greyish tinge.

Ingredients: 3 egg whites 4oz sifted icing sugar 3 teaspoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon glycerine (optional) IJ-lJlb sifted icing sugar Few drops of blue from a blue bag Method: Beat until frothy egg whites and icing sugar and add lemon juice and glycerine. Gradually beat in icing sugar and add blue. , . Royal icing can be made in an electric cake mixer: the egg whites should be beaten with a little of the sugar until frothy, the remaining,sugar is then added gradually, with the mixer set at a slow speed. The last addition of sugar may have to be beaten in by hand, a wooden spoon should always be used for hand beating. Royal icing should have a consistency that can be drawn up into peaks. These peaks should curl over if the icing is to be used for coating the cake, but remain in peaks if the icing is for decorative or snow effects. Before use the icing must be kept closely covered with a wet cloth, and not left exposed to the air, this prevents a crust forming. Metal spoons and spatulas must not be left in the icing, . nor should icing be left in contact with metal pipes, the acid m the icing causes metal to discolour the icing- , ~ The icing is first spread roughly on the cake. A snow effect can be formed by lifting the surface with the flat side of a knife, which causes the icing to stand up in small peaks, or the surface can be smoothed out with a knife or spatula that has been heated in hot water. The icing must not be made wet to smooth it out, and a few bold strokes give a better finish than dabbing at the cake. Bubbles sometimes form and these should be pricked with a fine needle while the icing is wet The icing must be allowed to drv for 24 hours before decorative icing effects are added A turntable is a great help when icing or decorating a cake; an improvised turntable can be made from a board on a circular niano stool, or with an enamel bowl inverted over an upturned basin. >