Have you made your cake?

When asked “Have you made your cake?” at this time of the year there’s no need to qualify which cake, especially if the question is from Mother (she asked me this evening when I rang for her birthday). She means Christmas cake. That long held tradition (I guess around the world but certainly in my New Zealand life) of making the Christmas cake (or fruit mince) at Labour Weekend. I still have the book out with my cake recipe in it from last weekend when I went off on a rant about tradition dying away (another sign of middle age (EYEROLL)) and even though I think writing in books with pen is naughty, I love that I’ve written in this particular book. Between that and the move to recording everything on my blog, I can track my Christmas baking for the last 15 years … with just one year unaccounted for … am still trying very hard to remember … 2004.

• Years 1995 – 2003 Christmas cake, per the Australian Woman’s Weekly New Cookbook (with inscription from Mother inside from 1987)

• 2004 – the lost year
• 2005 – the experimental Christmas Scone Cake i.e. Pan Dolce
• 2006 – 1st Christmas fruit mince (unchopped)
• 2007 – 2nd Christmas fruit mince (chopped)
• 2008 – 3rd Christmas fruit mince (minced)
• 2009 – none, used remaining 2008 batch
• 2010 – 4th Christmas fruit mince (minced)