Christmas baking time

As we were away last weekend when I would traditionally do my Christmas fruit-based baking I’ll probably do it this weekend. I’ve been mulling over what to bake.

Christmas Cake – made this for about 7 years in a row and stopped a couple years back to try something different. For me this is the ultimate in tradition which is one of the reasons why I bake for Christmas – neither the Mister nor I are actually into fruity baking. The cake is pretty big, and rich, and we can never get through it.

Pan dolce – I tried this once the year before last. It was cool. Needed orange blossom water which was a first for me. Our friends came over to have some and that’s another reason why I bake for Christmas – I want people to come over for ‘coffee and cake’ so we can say Merry Christmas to each other and look at my lovely Christmas tree laden with only orange decorations. I’d rather do this than presents to be honest. The pan dolce dried out a bit. The Mister wasn’t too keen on it because it was quite crumbly.

Fruit mince pies – had my first attempt at these last year and they went pretty well. Mince was a bit bulky though so it was quite hard wrestling plump raisins and bits of apricot into the tiny pastry cases. However, I know that now, and we have our chef friend’s set of Global cooking knives so I can get the Mister to help me cut up the fruit this year. The pies were quite easy to transport to baking-deprived friends at work and our American friend Jiff was impressed. The Mister liked them quite a lot – probably because there was more sweet pastry than fruit.

So I think it’s going to be pies again. Whilst I bake for my own enjoyment and idea of what Christmas and tradition is all about, it basically boils down to what the Mister will eat! Aaahhhh – the true foundation of a solid marriage!