Making my own Christmas Cake

This year I decided to start a few new traditions and making a Christmas cake was one of them. At the end of November I told you about the start of the cake making process. I used Delia Smith's Classic Christmas Cake recipe found in one of my Mum's Delia cook books and also online at Delia Online.

I soaked the fruit for a few days in brandy and then made the cake, following Delia's instructions of lining the cake tin correctly and protecting the cake with brown paper. I decided to make the cake on a Monday evening and didn't realise how long it would take to prepare each step, especially the lining of the tin! With four hours cooking time let's just say it was a late night to bed that evening!

But the late night was worth it as this is what came out of the oven. The smell of Christmas!

The cake was then left in its baking parchment and wrapped up carefully in foil for a few weeks. Only being opened to feed the cake each week with brandy and then a little fresh orange juice at the end.

On Friday I unwrapped the cake for the big reveal. During the weeks previously I had collected together everything I needed to finish and ice the cake.

I decided that I wanted to ice the cake using Royal icing on top of a very thin layer of marzipan. To help me I followed this decorate a Christmas cake with royal icing how to video from Waitrose to see how to do it.

After leaving the icing to set a little I sprinkled the cake with pearly hundreds and thousands and some edible silver stardust. I was thinking about adding some silver balls but decided to leave it as it was.

I wanted the top of the cake to look a bit like little snow drifts...

I love how the stardust brings the cake to life, it looks just like twinkling snow!

I then added a thick ribbon I found in a local craft shop to surround the cake to give it more of a Christmassy feel.

I'm looking forward to testing out the cake and tucking in! This is definitely a tradition I want to keep going and perfecting for years to come. Let's hope it tastes good!