The remarkable Christmas cake

Press, 21 December 1976, Page 14

The remarkable Christmas cake

(By

MARGARET MAHY)

It’s Christmas —- the time that we gather to make A truly remarkable once-a-year cake. The recipe’s written in letters of gold By a family witch who is terribly old. The rule of this cake is it has to be made In a wheel-barrow (stirred with a shovel and spade) At Christmas, the season of love and goodwill. (Other times of the year it can make you quite ill.) You nail it together or stick it with glue. You hammer it flat with the heel of your shoe. You must stretch it out thin, you must tie it in knots, And then get out your paint-box and paint it with spots. What a taste, what a flavour! It’s certain to please. It is rather like ice-cream with pickles and cheese. (Its taste in July is like soup made with mud While its taste in September would curdle your blood.) But at Christmas its flavour is simply delicious. Now get out the axe and our very very best dishes. Be careful! Be careful! This cake might explode And blow up the kitchen and part of the road. Oh dear! It’s exploded! I thought that It might. It’s not very often we get in just right. A sad disappointment — but be of good cheer For I’m sure that we’ll do it correctly next year. For Christmas ■ — that gipsy day — comes and it goes More quickly than ever we dare to suppose, And when it is Christmas we’ll gather to make That truly remarkable once-a-year cake.