Christmas cake and pudding......

What is Christmas cake my grandmother says that you cant buy a proper Christmas cake, as it has to have the traditional ingredients and look!
So i searched the net to find out what is the definition of a Christmas cake
check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cake%20-%2031k


Christmas cake, i really wanted to just get this out, in November my Mam bought the ingredients for the Christmas cake and pudding.
Costing her a grand total of about 40euro for everything including the plate thing for the cake sits on and the bowls for the pudding.
It took her a whole evening to prepare both the mixtures and then she had to leave them over night the next day she had to cook them for AGES.. i mean they were in the oven for hours. After they were finally cooked she took them out and began rapping them in layers and layers of grease proof paper, stressing that if she didn't wrap them enough they wouldn't taste nice. a week or so before Christmas shell take them out of the press unwrap the many layers of grease-proof paper and then begin the artistic task of icing and decorating the cake, now this is the most time consuming part i have seen my mam work on the icing and decorating for 3 days making sure its perfect. I must admit the cake always looks brilliant, but the only thing is no one really ever eats it. I don't, my brother doesn't and funnily enough my mother doesn't even like it. Its my poor father who gets it for desert at bought dinner time and lunch time from Christmas till new years daily!
So why bother???
It takes up so much time, would it not be easier to join in with the majority of people who just buy their cakes and puddings?

I would love to find out how many households still endure in this festive task.

I also wanted to find out for myself what are the ingredients to a traditional Irish Christmas cake here's the results:

1 lb sultanas
1/2 lb raisins
1/2 lb currants
4 oz glacé [candied] cherries, halved or whole, not chopped.
2 oz mixed candied peel, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground mixed spice [pudding spice]
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essense
grated zest & juice of 1 lemon
grated zest & juice of 1 orange
1 apple, finely grated
3 oz slivered almonds
2 oz ground almonds
1 tablespoon treacle or Golden syrup
4 tablespoons Irish Whiskey
10 oz Irish butter
8 oz soft brown sugar
5 eggs
10 oz plain [all-purpose] flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wow who new there was so many???

To find out more about making the cake check out:http://http//www.dochara.com/eat/traditional/christmas-cake.php

ENJOY