This is my Christmas cake recipe as it appeared in our local free paper, Waterford Today, today.

No great deal, they have been printing my recipes for several years now.
The difference this time is that they have, for this occasion, included a picture of the cake and the picture is one I took myself.
First time I have succeeded in getting one of my photos in print!

The cake recipe is one we have been cooking for about 30 years.
It originally came from Margaret Costa’s brilliant (and now again in print) Four Seasons Cookbook.
It was religiously made by Sile for around twenty something years until I had more time than her, when I retired a few years ago.
The important thing is to note the varities of fruit are not sacroscant and you can add any you happen to find so long as the weight remains the same.
This year I added some prunes and some apricots to the mix and it tastes great.
If, like me , you find it difficult to just look at the thing for three weeks the best advice is to make a double mixture, divide the extra mix into three, well lined, one kg. loaf tins and just get these out of the oven much sooner than the main cake.
These can then be nibbled, guilt free, up to the Christmas.

One more point, and an important one, is that fan ovens and Christmas Cakes are not great friends.
If you can possibly turn off your fan before cooking (I can with mine) do so.
This stops the cake drying so much.
Otherwise the best advice is to watch it like a hawk and take it out of the oven the minute it is cooked.