Once upon a time I hated Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding. Then as I’ve mentioned in a previous post I went to cookery school for the Autumn Term in 1986 as part of my rejoining the world post a 4 month stay in hospital.
As Christmas was in the horizon we made a Christmas Cake and a Pudding. Having made it I thought I ought to sample it. To my immense surprise I loved them both. I have yet to taste any other Christmas Pudding that I have actually enjoyed eating nor found a fruit cake that matches my own. I hasten to add this is not due to my cooking ability but rather a tribute to the person who devised the recipes.
Back at the end of the 1980s I made a single cake and pudding for us. Over the years this gradually increased to making an additional pudding for whichever family member was hosting Christmas to a couple for presents. Now in 2015 I find myself searching for places to keep the five cakes and six puddings of varying sizes that I have made for us and as presents.
I love my aunt dearly but I bitterly regret taking her advice to try making my own marzipan as “home made marzipan is so much better than bought”. I found myself a recipe that is probably more a pâte d’amandes than a traditional marzipan. Far less pliable but less cloying too. She was completely right home made is so much better that I cannot bring myself to buy marzipan any longer. Not so bad when covering one cake but five – well let’s say in a couple of weeks time I shall be elbow deep in ground almonds kneading away.
And then comes my joyous attempts at decorating. This is not my forte but I do my best and in the process dye my fingers the most revolting colour as I attempt to dye white icing red, green, yellow, purple, blue, pink or whatever tickles my fancy. Out come the cutters and away I go.
It is this stage that the post-Encephalitis problems rear their head. You do need to work relatively quickly so that the icing doesn’t dry out and become less easy to handle and prone to cracking. So switching off, becoming distracted or wandering off and forgetting I’m icing cakes can be problematic! Handling my reactions when my planned designs don’t work or I’ve touched the white icing with colours in the wrong places and ruined the pristine surfaces ranges from shrugging shoulders to full blown toddler meltdown.
Even though I know this is likely to happen given previous experiences and I do myself to talk to myself beforehand I still seem to be caught unaware. I can’t help it if I lose time or simply stop without realising it or pop upstairs and forget to come down. You’d think multi-coloured fingers would act as a reminder unless of course you’ve had Encephalitis when you completely get it.
The frustration that comes when I can’t work out how to do something that appears to be so simple yet the link between brain and fingers is intermittent can make life so awkward. It’s a certainty that at some point I’ll be fighting back tears or tantrums.
Yet still I push myself through it each and every year. Why? I’ve learned that sooner or later I’ll remember that the worst that can happen is that I have to rip off the icing and start all over again. I keep photos from earlier years to copy if need be. Most important though, is the look on the people’s faces when I handover Christmas Cakes and Puddings that they say they couldn’t possibly make themselves, their genuine appreciation that I’ve spent my time on making something for them and their hopeful requests when returning pudding bowls and cake boards that they’ll get the same again next year.
And that makes me feel so good that I note down in my calendar for mid October check you’ve got ingredients to make Christmas Cakes and Puddings.
Joining the Dots 