This morning, as other family members hunkered over their Weetabix, I turned a large bowl of brandy soaked fruit into a Christmas cake and put it warily into the oven. The only other time I have tried this recipe, as dictated by the diva of domesticity herself, I found myself stuffing the sprawled contents of a supposedly cooked and cooled cake back into the tin and introducing the concept of a twice baked fruit-cake to the family. That year it resembled a ready-made alpine scene and Father Christmas slid rather gracefully into a ravine that no amount of icing would fill!
Today, I dutifully lined the tin to a height of ten centimetres above the rim and then wrapped it, twice, in brown paper to the same height - again as dictated by the former star of television baking herself. So far so good.
When I reappeared in the kitchen armed with quill and parchment ready to progress the novel a sentence or two, I was greeted with a distinctly damp buring smell. A long ago relation was in the paper business and we still possess an enormous roll of brown paper that stands in the cupboard under the stairs. Sadly, the years and the effects of living in a swamp mean that said paper, when in a warm oven, emits an alarming aroma!
I trimmed the excessive quantities of crisping paper and returned the cake to the oven. Although the kitchen now smells vaguely spicy rather than of damp dog which is its usual form of greeting - I am somewhat dreading the 'Ta dah!' moment of revelation when the Christmas centrepiece is unlocked from its springform tin. This time I'll have scoops ready in case of collapse and a jug full of something alcoholic to douse the cake with should it smell more of burning bog than blissful baking.
Her recipes are usually foolproof and are indeed responsible for an increase in the average waistband size in this household, but this time I have fingers crossed that Nigella's insistence on paper-wrapped fruit and flour lives up to its promise!
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