Christmas Cake

Welcome back to The Cooking Goalie. Sorry it's been a while - I've been a bit busy. Anyway this year my Mum said me and my brother could make the Christmas cake so we did it in half-term. Here we are, at the ready with all the gear.

Jamie was in charge of measuring the ingredients as usual. That's his job. I am mixing together the dry ingredients - flour, mixed spice and some salt.

Here I ahem attempted to mix together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Oh dear. We are still finding bits of it on the walls.

Here the Cooking Goalie's Brother is chopping up the glace cherries and trying not to eat them all. They are his favourite.

I am mixing the eggs and treacle into the flour. And  then all the currants, sultanas and raisins go in. And mixed peel. And lemon zest and brandy. You have to do this with a metal spoon and try not to knock out all the air otherwise the cake will be flat as a pancake. (As you might have noticed I am now wearing a very professional chef's hat from a posh shop in London.)

The Cooking Goalie's brother is having a go at mixing all the ingredients together. My mum thinks I may have been on the brandy.

This is the cake just before it goes into the oven...

...and this is it about 4 hours later. We stuck a skewer in it to make sure it was cooked. I will decorate it before Christmas - watch this space. Suggestions for decorations on my blog comments please, otherwise it will be the usual Nativity set.