Yet another culinary saga!

Cherry

By Rhiannonw

Fri, 19 Dec 2025
  • 158 reads
12 comments
 

A space of time to sort and make
our annual festive Christmas cake.
Check and gather all ingredients
(where is the ground almond?
I’m sure I bought it – did I?
Husband goes  out to the store
to get some more,
and then I found what I’d bought before,
hiding behind the tins.)

All went calmly, mixing,
all went calmly fixing
lining the bottom and the sides of the tin,
tall brown paper tied around outside with string.

In the little new top oven I put it
then later pulled it out to check it;
– as I pushed it back the greasproof
lining took light – poof! –
the element was on the oven roof!
Brown paper then touched it
here and there, little flames spurting,
quickly quenched, but
cinders dropping everywhere.

Calmness gone;
I called up to the practical one
(my better half) in some despair:
he patiently pulled out the damaged lining
and cleaned the cake’s surface with great care.
Twenty minutes later back in the oven
(but the larger one) for the long low cook.
 
Now sits awaiting icing,
but when we look locally,
Royal Icing Powder unavailable, can’t get it,
nor easily on the internet
(no demand?
much easier than traditional method,
and preferred to ‘ready-to-roll’)
So we drove down ten miles to the next town
–- and stocked up 
 – for next year?

[IP: Kitchen tales] — another couple on this subject: 
https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/family-gathering
https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/%E2%80%98better-dry-crust-peace...

Certificate U
Poem
Families
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Tom Brown on

I always loved fruit cake and christmas tart or chocolate pudding but I never eat it people often throw brandy all over it I rather not take a chance.

Excellent work Rhiannon, a beautiful poem. Can you really bake fruit cake it is a true art? You forgot the main ingredient but there is lots of it! Love.

See you! Tom

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you, Tom. Rich fruit cake is simple, or I probably wouldn't attempt it, but takes time, and a long cook. And lining the tins I find a bit tiring also. All went well this time until the saga with the oven, and being a new oven, I hadn't fully realised the care needed, and the cake was better cooked in the larger, more normal one! regards, Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Just realised what  you mean about brandy over the cake or pudding. We don't do that anyway. Rich, but not acoholic! Rhainnon

 

Submitted by Turlough on

During the Yorkshire segments of my life we had Christmas cake but there was never any icing on it, and it was always eaten with an ample portion of Wensleydale cheese.

I love Christmas cake now, especially as I'm unable to get it (or even some of the ingredients to make it myself) but as a six-year-old the best part of it was licking the wooden spoon and the mixing bowl.

Turlough

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

I'm afraid I was never very fond of dried fruit, but the Christmas cake where all was squashed together and not separate I did like, but especially if plenty of royal icing to combine with it! (my father used to say his mother-in-law tossed some fruit from the top of the hill behind the house at ordinary 'fruit' flavoured cakes' as there was so little in it - a relic of war years where dried fruit was a luxury but expensive and chocolate more so I suppose! And that was how I didn't like dried fruit where you felt the feel of each piece separately. I expect I took the fruit out to enjoy the plain cake!) Rhiannon

 

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Oh my goodness what a calamitous few minutes that must have been Rhiannon! I hope it tastes wonderful after all that. Do you do the thing of 'feeding' it? My late (and ex) mother in law used to make a whole series of Christmas cakes as she had a big family and she'd feed them with alcohol - can't remember which - over the weeks before Christmas. Luckily my favourite sister in law has taken over the tradition and she sent me some earlier. It was very good!

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

No, I haven't done that, not a tradition of my family before either!

I had been so pleased that it had got done smoothly til then! But I hadn't realised that the small oven was so, just felt the cake fitted it well. I think it will be fine now, just waiting to ice it sometime soon!

I've struggled on and off all week, to try to make something of this as a story/poem, and to share my ineptitude! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you for the cherries on the cake! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Glad it turned out well in the end :0) I wonder, if you had soaked the fruit in brandy, if that might have made it more flammable! My Dad used to try making brandy from fruit he picked (inspired by the drinks he was given in Eastern Europe when working there) and one year he poured some on the Christmas pudding and set light, and the flame shot up and singed the paper chains, which shocked my Mum rather, and made him very sheepish

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Well, I hadn't! But greaseproof paper and brown paper are flammable when they touch an electic element, and with the side lining papers left tall, and an element in the roof, it wasn't the place for my cake!

Thank you, I'm glad it was OK in the end too. I don't think I could have made another if it had gone to waste!

Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Tom Brown on

You see the thing is the cake is so rich and so sweet you cannot taste the alcohol.

Some people don't eat pork, some eat only vegetables, some people don't eat cats and dogs and some people don't eat other people. Some people are allergic to sea food or msg. Most people don't swallow their bubble gum.

If you are on medication also, you should have no alcohol. Don't do drugs, don't steal, don't hurt other people. Don't be stupid. Don't waste your money on the wall don't get into fights.

I don't use alcohol. Alcohol has never made anything better. Much rather go to church or organised sport for friends. Like chess or dancing, be a sunday school teacher or such.

And why would you want to drink in the first place?

Keep well, and keep healthy habits! Tom

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Quite a list there, Tom!

There are many things we know to be right, or wrong, but we need God's help to do what is right. We all have particular weaknesses. And we need to take sensible precautions!

In the past weak alcohol was a preserver when fresh water wasn't easily available. Alcohol in moderation can be beneficial to some, personally I've never been attracted anhow for some reason, but many have to take care.

My mother used to get bothered that some were so keen to pressurise youngsters into taking pleasure in alcohollic drink, but weren't sensitive to the fact that some of the youngsters didn't know how to handle it, or couldn't, and so it was very unkind to push them so.

Rhiannon