If you’ve ever wondered why your gran always seemed to be baking her Christmas cake so early, there’s a good reason for it. Traditional Christmas cake needs time. Made now and fed weekly with brandy or tea, it matures into something far richer and more moist than anything baked in a rush the week before December 25th. Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, has marked the traditional start of Christmas cake baking in Britain for generations, and it’s still one of the best excuses to get the mixing bowl out.
There’s just one catch with most Christmas cake recipes: they call for small amounts of a lot of different things. A few grams of mixed spice here, a handful of glace cherries there, a spoonful of almonds. You end up buying whole packets of each, using a fraction, and either binning the rest in January or leaving it at the back of the cupboard until next Christmas, usually in plastic packaging that can’t be recycled kerbside.
Why we made a Christmas Cake Kit
We wanted a way to bake a proper, traditional Christmas cake without any of that waste, so we’ve put together a Christmas Cake Kit with every dry ingredient weighed out to exactly what the recipe needs and packed completely plastic-free. You just add your own eggs, butter (or a plant-based equivalent), orange and brandy, or tea for a zero-alcohol version. The recipe itself was devised by our own Jane Rennells, who many of you will remember from her days running Stay Grounded Coffee Shop right here on our site. She was responsible for some of the best baked goods in town so you know this recipe will create something delicious.
How to feed and store your Christmas cake
Once baked, wrap your cake in greaseproof paper and foil and store it somewhere cool. Every week or so, unwrap it, prick the top a few times with a skewer and spoon over a tablespoon or two of brandy, or cold black tea if you’d rather keep it alcohol-free. Rewrap and repeat until you’re ready to decorate. Fed this way, a Christmas cake will happily keep for around 8 weeks, meaning one afternoon of baking now sees you through Christmas Day and well beyond.
Make it your own
If you’ve got a family recipe you’d rather use instead, bring it into our Faringdon Refill Shop and we’ll weigh out the ingredients to your exact quantities while you get on with the rest of your Christmas shopping in town.
Christmas Cake Kits are available to buy in store now, or order online for delivery at tribezerowaste.co.uk. Visit us at 7a Marketplace, Faringdon, Monday to Saturday, 9:30am to 4pm, and Sunday, 10am to 3pm.