Tag Archives: Christmas cake

Deck the halls with bowls of food

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In my head it has been Christmas for a few months because I have been planning the festive edition of Food for Thought. There has been a lot of planning, thinking and editing and I am rather proud of what I created. I know it is only talking about food, but getting so many people to talk about the different aspects of the day has been really interesting.

To get yourself inspired for Christmas listen to Food for Thought in full here:

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To kick off this Christmas special is my trip to the Lincoln Christmas Market. The four day market has all sorts but this year I visited with my focus on food. The market also seems to have become synonymous with mulled wine, I didn’t grab a glass as I went at 11am by myself, but I did chat to some people serving it… dressed as monks.

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A few weeks ago Food for Thought regular Sam Pidoux and I went to a Christmas Food and Gift Fair at the Lincolnshire Showground. It was a chance for local producers to show off their Christmas foods. We went to find Christmas food essentials such as wine, cheese and the bird.

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Traditionally the panic of Christmas Day comes from cooking the turkey, so I chatted to Lincolnshire chef Rachel Green to get some tips. As well as passing on her advice for preparing the turkey she also has some recipes for what to do with any leftovers.

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I have chatted in the past few weeks, about how I am not a huge fan of Christmas cake. My favourite part is the marzipan, which doesn’t do many favours to the cake. However, I wanted to find out more about how to make it and decorate it so I chatted to a cake making professional.

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To end this week’s show was a brief chat with the organisers of the Lincoln Oktoberfest about what kinds of food Germans like to eat at Christmas time.

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If you haven’t had enough, then there is another Yuletide edition this week. Listen to Siren FM on Wednesday at 2pm or Saturday at 3pm. As well Christmas songs galore I have also been finding out about what to make for the Christmas Day meal if you are vegetarian and reviewing Christmas sandwiches.

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Christmas cake conundrum

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It may only be the early days of December but I have started to plan Christmas. This is after months of purposefully ignoring it. Now I have succumbed to the yuletide spirit I am ‘urming’ and ‘ahhing’ over what Christmas cake to make. I am not a fan of the traditional fruit cake, so if I am going to make a cake then I am going to make sure that it is something I really like.

Last year was the first time I made a Christmas cake. I made a chocolate cake, with the sides covered in a white chocolate buttercream and the top was melted white chocolate. It wasn’t the prettiest cake ever made, but it tasted pretty good.

Now I am in a bit of a conundrum as to what to make this year. Initially I wanted to make four smallish cakes which spelt out xmas. Then the cakes could have been different flavours and decorated individually. However, my Mum said that these types of cake can be deceptively hard. So back to the drawing board.

The next bit of inspiration is from my advent calendar. I may be 22-years-old but I still make sure to get an advent calendar. To add to the childishness of this I went for one with Percy Pig on. Instead of milk chocolate the daily treats are white chocolate and raspberry flavour, so that they are piggy pink. My boyfriend then suggested that this could be good combination for our Christmas cake.

Whatever I decide to do I am going to try make the cake look prettier than last year’s attempt. Not quite sure what to do yet, but picked up some festive stencils from Lakeland so will make sure that they get used.

I also fancy making a yule log, but don’t want to overindulge too much. So, dear Internet, what ideas for Christmas cake do you have that are not the traditional fruit cake?