Saturday 29 October 2011

Tiny Christmas Cakes




Hello all, yes I know it is still October and normally I refuse all mention of the C-word until at least 1st December but some things just have to be done in advance.


In the past few years I've made an 6 or 8in cake which I've shared out between family once I could bear cutting it. That said there's always enough that people get a bit fed up so this year I have made 3 small 8oz cakes from Mary Berry's book. It seems to be here normal cake scaled down so you could divide a 6in recipe by about 8 I think.



The recipe reccommends using half tins of baked beans: exhibit A

Hmm, never thought I would be putting pictures of baked beans on a cake blog!


Careful of ring pull ones though. I forgot with all of mine and had to use the tin opener anyway as they leave a ridge inside. It was quite awkward so I'd suggest using a tin opener on the bottom to get a clean edge. Also I found the Heinz tins easier as others don't seem as sturdy and they have straight as opposed to rigded sides. You prep them as normal, I used 2 layers of baking paper.The cake recipe was fairly standard. I put some dried cranberries in to give it a Christmassy feel.





And voila, 3 8oz fruit cakes



I did like only having to wait 1 1/4 hrs and not the usual 3hrs+. They also came out really easily by pulling gently on the paper cuffs. I had had visions of taking the bottoms off with a tin opener.



I'll probably make some little madeira ones in these tins for the fruit cake haters. Now just to decide how to decorate? Do I do them matching or different, I can't decide. Any ideas?

1 comment:

pink_gerbera365 said...

I have just made these also for the first time today :) I do not eat fruit cake and have never made a christmas cake before. After looking through the Mary Berry book I thought they would be great as gifts! Mine are just cooling.