Christmas Cakes Galore So easy to make.

Christmas Cakes Galore or The Most Beautiful Dessert

We love our Christmas cakes so much. Last year I actually made 14 Christmas cakes and we were lucky to have the over half of the first one still wrapped up.

That one was over 9 months old. The others were perhaps into six to eight weeks old at the time the first cut was made across the centre line. All but the first and the last were different and from various admirers of our cake making ability.

In the near future I am putting a new Christmas Cake book together from around the World and from various people, who have kindly given their permission for me to use their favourite recipe. Also The Most Beautiful Dessert.

Just to tempt you to submitting your own Famous Christmas cake here is TEMPTAION AT THE HIGHEST.

Rich Christmas Cake

450 g Currents

175 g Sultanas

175 g Raisins

50 g Glace Cherries rinsed and finally chopped

50 g Mixed whole peel finally chopped

45 ml Brandy

225 g Plain Flour

2.5 ml Salt

1.25 ml Nutmeg freshly grated

2.5 ml Mixed Spice grated

225 g Butter

225 g Brown Sugar soft

4 Eggs large

50 g Almonds chopped and pealed

7.5 m Black Treacle Warm the treacle in microwave

1 grated rind Lemon

1 grated rind Orange

Preheat the oven to gas mark 2, 275 F (140C)

A 20 cm round cake tin or 18cm square tine greased and lined with greaseproof paper.

Previous night place all dried fruit into a in a bowl and mix the brandy in. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave standing for 12 hours.

Sift all the dried ingredients together into large mixing bowl and in a separate bowl cream the butter, sugar until the mixture light and fluffy, (from your point of view please do not cut any corners here. MORE ESPECIALLY from MY POINT of VIEW. Do not want you to have a failure.)

Beat the eggs and very slowly add to add them to creamed mixture. (If any curdling appears, add a little flour. Please beat whilst adding the eggs to the creamed mixture. After these items are mixed and there is no apparent curdling, fold in the flour, do not beat. Stir in the fruit and peal that has been soaking in the brandy for 12 hours. Then nuts, treacle and the grated lemon and Orange.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and spread evenly with the back of a spoon.

Tie a band of brown paper around the outside of tin and cover the top with a double fold of greaseproof paper, having cut a hole the size of 50 cent piece in the middle.

Bake the cake on the bottom shelf of your oven for 4.25 or 4.45 hours. No peaking until at least 4 hours have passed.

When cold wrap in double greaseproof paper store in an airtight tin.

This is the perfect Cake. FOR AN EVEN BETTER CAKE EVERY 5/6 DAYS FEED THE HUNGRY BEAST BY PIECINCING THE GREASEPROOF PAPER WITH A DARNING NEEDLE AND DRIP A FEW TEASPOONS OF BRANDY INTO THE CAKE. Your cake will mature nicely and every one will say you are the best Christmas cake maker they know.

That is a great recommendation to have after your name.

If you would like to submit one of your best or favourite fruit cakes or best Dessrt, after I have made and tasted it. I will include, with your permission and publish in The Christmas Cakes Of The World and send you acknowledgement of same. Who knows we may both get famous for the best Christmas Cake Book on the book world market. One of the Christmas Cakes is called Franks Famous Marmalade Cake. Could you believe that?

I use to buy new Cook Books if I like them. Then I became involved in the book Publishing and Market in this area, The opportunity of getting all the books for free was overwhelming.

A very funny incident happened, whilst I was there, A very famous person involved in publishing decided to publish a book about a very famous sports personality. 20,000 of the books were printed and published an d with large promotion and lots of briber, we magaged to sell less than 50.

The book was later pulped, in those days you could build a small house for the total cost of the publishing of that particular book. It sure cost a lort of money with nothing returned. One of these genltmen went on to become very rich. The other slowly sank into oblivion.

One of the desserts that will be going into going into My new Dessert bookwill be the Pavlova.

Over the years there has been a lot of discussion about who made the first Pavlova.

Pavlova

In 1935, the chef of the Hotel Esplanade in Perth, Western Australia, Herbert Sachse created the Pavlova to celebrate the visit of the Great Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. Whilst it has been suggested this dessert was created in New Zealand, it has become recognized as a popular Australian dish.

TRADITIONAL PAVLOVA

4-6 egg whites

pinch salt

8oz castor sugar/sugar (equal parts)

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 level teaspoons corn flour

(Please note the following equivalents:

castor sugar or fine/super fine sugar

corn flour or cornstarch)

Preheat oven to 400F (200C).

Lightly grease oven tray, line with baking paper or use non-stick cooking spray.

Beat the whites of eggs with a pinch of salt until stiff (until peaks form).

Continue beating, gradually adding sugar, vinegar and vanilla, until of thick consistency.

Lightly fold in corn flour.

Pile mixture into circular shape, making hollow in centre for filling.

(Mixture will swell during cooking)

Electric oven: turn oven to 250F (130C) and bake undisturbed for 1 1/2 hours.

Gas oven: bake at 400F (200C) for ten minutes, then turn oven to 250F (130C) and bake a further hour.

(Fan forced oven: temperature and time needs to be adjusted accordingly.)

Turn oven off; leave Pavlova in oven until cool.

Top with whipped cream and decorate with fruit as desired.

Pavlova

Australia and New Zealand square off again. Both countries claim the Pavlova as a national dish, but there can only be one winner. This popular dish is named after the famous ballerina, Anna Pavlova, who toured Australia and New Zealand in 1920s. So, who first cooked up this sweet treat in her honour?

But before that, a tooth tale with a bite to it, as it was. Here's Jeremy Boylen.

JEREMY BOYLEN: What a dish! Sweet, beautiful, as light as air, just like the famous Russian ballerina who came to Australia and New Zealand back in the 1920s. Her name was... (Russian accent)...Anna Pavlova. We knew her as... (Strine accent)...Anna Pavlova. And we liked her so much; we named a dessert after her. The problem is, so did the Kiwis. I, JEREMY BOYLEN have put together something of an international team. To start with, there is me- an Australian-born Pavlova eater. I'm joined by Andy Goodman, who's a chef from New Zealand, and Australian chef Catherine Kerry, who was born in France. Ladies and gentlemen...start your ovens.

ANDY GOODMAN: OK, so what I've done to start with here is I've broken four egg whites. I'm just going to add a pinch of cream of tartar into the egg whites, and a pinch of salt. And then I'll start whipping the whites until we get to a firm, stiff peak. Well, we're adding a splash of vanilla essence. We're going to add two teaspoons of vinegar.

JEREMY BOYLEN: All-important for this recipe.

ANDY GOODMAN: Very much so. And then we're going to start adding our sugar gradually and get the mix to a nice glossy texture.

JEREMY BOYLEN: While you whip yourself into frenzy, I'll go over with Catherine. So, Catherine, how do you counter that?

CATHERINE KERRY: Well, in the restaurant we made up these little Pavlovas. Now, by the time I've decorated this with some cream and strawberries, it will taste delicious. But is it really a Pavlova? Because without the vinegar, it's not going to have that marshmallow centre that Andy's Pavlova is going to have.

JEREMY BOYLEN: This is the signature of a good Pavlova - the brittle crust, the creamy marshmallow centre.

CATHERINE KERRY: I sometimes wonder whether they do it overseas. It certainly deserves to be better known.

JEREMY BOYLEN: Well, it certainly is in New Zealand.

CATHERINE KERRY: But it's known here. We invented it, didn't we?!

JEREMY BOYLEN: We shall see. Stay tuned.

SONG: # Pavlova! Eat it morning, noon and night

# Eat it breakfast, dinner, tea or lunch

# Soft in the centre and the edge goes crunch

# Age-old recipe packs a punch

# It's...PAVLOVA! #

JEREMY BOYLEN: Judgment time, people.

FOOTAGE OF JEREMY BOYLEN TASTING EACH PAVLOVA

JEREMY BOYLEN: Mmm! Mmm! It's a trans-Tasman tie! Equally delicious. Nothing in it. Beautiful. But on the question of which country invented it, there can be only one winner.

DR MICHAEL SYMONS, AUSTRALIAN FOOD HISTORIAN: New Zealand has had a recipe often called a meringue cake, but sometimes called a Pavlova, before anything like that was known in Australia. And I think one of those places where the meringue cake changed its name to the Pavlova was in Perth when Bert Sachsen was cooking at the Esplanade Hotel. He's the person that has been credited in Australia with inventing it in 1935. And someone in the hotel gave it the name 'Pavlova'.

PROFESSOR HELEN LEACH, FOOD HISTORIAN, UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO: I found a recipe book in my collecting of New Zealand compiled recipe books from a 1933 'Rangiora Mothers' Union Cookery Book' for a pavlova cake. Now, it's the correct name and it's also the correct ingredients and the correct method. This year, I found an even earlier recipe for a Pavlova. It's 1929, and it's in a New Zealand rural magazine. So as you can imagine, I thought, "Well, there's clearly something wrong with the Australian claim."

DR MICHAEL SYMONS: I can see why it's, in many ways, a healthy thing, a liberating thing for New Zealanders to feel proud of the fact that they really are the ones that invented the Pavlova.

JEREMY BOYLEN: Well, it seems the Kiwis have it. But at least they can't pinch our true-blue, fair dinkum Aussie icons like Split Enz and Phar Lap and good old Russell Crowe. Bon appetit!

Jeremy having the time of his life. But really, what's all the fuss? It's only a pile of beaten egg white with fruit and cream all over it. And how did I know that Rusty the defrocked Kiwi would get a mention?

Just as well my wife has not heard that comment, she thinks Rusty the defrocked Kiwi is prety okay. Specially after he donated a new swimming pool in the little village he lives in. She is also an excellent Pavlova maker from New Zealand.