Will people be posting their cake recipes when they are being baked - I made one last year and it was a real disappointment   I'd like to do a good one this time.(I do have a really fab neighbour who used to work in the navy and every year he makes us a fruit cake and on Christmas eve gives us a large fresh cream black forest gateau with loads of booze in it - it always arrives just in time for my annual Christmas eve party...

I was just about to say Delia's Christmas cake recipe is brilliant   In fact i'm going to buy the ingredients tonight and make it....the quicker it is made, the more time is left to intermittently soak it with brandy in the run up to Crimbo I can't remember if this is what Delia advises anyway, but i always let the fruit soak overnight in the brandy....puffs up the raisins etc very nicely, and stops the cake drying out.

Surely it's already far too late for a good Christmas pudding! They need time to mature nicely. Mine get made in a big batch every few years just AFTER Christmas - during that period when christmas fruit is reduced in the supermarket, you're not at work, but have nothing much else to be doing either. Something to do with the recipe I use saying "steam for 7 hours", so it does tend to occupy the entire day. They then get to sit in the pantry for several years until they're eaten. Never had a bad pudding from it, although I do augment the liquid quantities, they seem a little on the stingy side to me - if it doesn't have half a bottle of rum & the same of brandy, it's not a proper pudding