Feeding The Cake

A happy Christmas comes in many guises

A25th November heavenly smell of orange zest and warm sugar rose up to Vita’s face as she skewered a half dozen holes into the freshly baked Christmas cake.

Thank goodness it had come out better than last year’s, which had emerged lopsided and dense as a brick. They’d eaten it anyway, dunking slices in their coffee, but this year she and Gavin were going to their daughter’s home to share Christmas with her in-laws, and Vita didn’t want the cake to let her down. It needed to be impressive.

“Be generous with the brandy,” Gavin advised as he watched her prepare to feed the liquor into the punctured cake. “You know how Pete likes his booze.”

“Don’t we all?” Vita said archly. She rotated the cake on the counter. It was bronzed and moist. A shame about the slightly blackened edge on one side…

“Erm… are you going to leave that bit?” Gavin asked tentatively. “What can I do?” she said. “Cut it off?” “It’ll be funny-shaped.” “You could disguise it with the icing,” he said helpfully.

Vita looked at the cake appraisingly. How she wished she’d paid more attention to her mother’s cookery lessons.

“Do you really think I should?” she asked doubtfully.

“What if Maria gets a mouthful of burned cake?”

Maria, Polly’s mother-in-law, was French. She had very high standards for her food. Vita pictured the grimace on Maria’s face if she tasted the blackened crumbs, though she was sure Maria would politely try to smother it. “Hand me the knife,” Vita said. Her face contorted with concentration as she pared off the burned edge. The counter top was littered with tiny pieces of debris.

“Perfect,” Gavin said with a thumbs-up.

2nd December

When Vita took the cake out of the cupboard and unwrapped it, it smelled just as nice as she remembered. But she could swear it hadn’t been so lopsided before.

“That’s your fault!” she said, rounding accusingly on Gavin. “You told me to cut the edge off!”

Gavin had opened the brandy to be helpful to Vita in preparation for feeding the cake, and she caught him sniffing pleasurably at the mouth of the bottle.

“Maybe it settled in the tin?” he said. “It looks awful,” she said mournfully. “It’s not so bad. I bet it’ll taste fantastic.”

“I need to even it up,” she said, reaching for the knife. “Are you sure?” “You can have the bits I take off and tell me what it tastes like.” “Well, I like that part of the plan.” “Besides, now I don’t have to worry about Maria passing judgement I can afford to risk it.”

She crouched down to eye level with the cake. Would it be too much to get the spirit level out?

“Yes, it’s a shame Maria and Pete won’t be there for Christmas. Although nice for them that they were offered that villa in Portugal for a week. And I think our Polly was quite relieved not to have to worry about the in-laws.”

Vita paused in slicing the bread knife through the appendix of the cake to smile at Gavin. “Do you remember the first time we had your mum and dad around for Christmas?”

“You only nearly gave my mother anaphylactic shock,” he said with a twinkle. “I don’t know why you keep going on about it.”

“Of course, we’re the in-laws too, you know,” Vita said, “to Dan.”

Gavin filled his mouth with the

trimmed-off pieces of cake and smacked his lips appreciatively.

“But we’re the laid-back in-laws. We’re the favourite grandma and grandpa.”

Vita snorted. “I bet that’s what Pete and Maria say too.” She paused. “Speaking of the kids, I think I’d better use orange juice instead of brandy this time. Just in case they’ve changed their minds about hating fruit cake. How does it taste?” “Lovely.” “That’s good, because it looks like the Titanic when it was halfway drowned.” She sighed. “I’m going to be so embarrassed to show this to anyone.”

12th December

“Since it’s only going to be the two of us,” Gavin said, “you can add lots of brandy after all.”

He gave Vita’s elbow an encouraging nudge as she hovered the bottle cautiously over the cake.

Vita was still feeling the disappointment over Polly and her family taking up her in-laws’ invitation to join them in Portugal for Christmas.

“And it’s going to be such a pretty cake this year,” she said with a sigh. “Once it’s iced. And there’ll be no one to show it off to.”

Gavin stood beside her and was silent a moment. Then he said, “Is it awful that I’m quite pleased to have a quiet Christmas?”

Vita turned to him. “And not to have to think about packing and travelling?” He looped his arms around her waist. “And have it be just the two of us.” She snuggled a bit closer to him. “We could get up late.” “Have fried Christmas pudding for our brunch.”

“And then watch TheSoundof Music all afternoon.” “It won’t be so bad, will it?” She signed into his chest. Not the mad, fun, exhausting, memorable Christmases that they were used to, with a thousand traditions and a million photos. Something different.

But no, it didn’t sound bad at all.

“Go on,” Gavin whispered. “Let’s cut a bit of that cake. For you too. It’s nearly Christmas.”

24th December

“Gavin! Have you been at this cake again?”

“No. Not since the last time you told me off, I swear.”

“It definitely looks smaller.” She paused. “Gavin?” “I can’t hear you, love!” She found him half-wedged in the cupboard under the stairs trying to finagle out the large Christmas tree they’d originally decided not to bother putting up this year, when they’d thought it would be just the two of them.

“Have we got time to put that up? Everyone’s arriving in a couple of hours.”

“If we don’t put it up, the kids will be really disappointed. So will Polly – you know how she loves it. I can get it done while you decorate the cake,” he said, emerging from the cupboard, dragging the tree like a festive lumberjack. “Then we’ll pop out to pick up the turkey –” “And nut loaf for Polly.” The trip to Portugal had fallen through last minute when the villa was flooded. Now everyone was coming here, since no one else had made any preparations at all.

Gavin set about the tree with baubles and lights, while Vita contemplated the cake and tried to overcome the pressure of the moment. Why on earth had she agreed to cut into it?

It wouldn’t take long to cover it with a layer of marzipan and simple white fondant icing. She’d decorate it with those iced trees. But first she was going to have to have another go at it with the knife, to disguise the fact that they’d already eaten one corner of it.

She flexed her fingers around the bread knife and took a deep breath.

When she was finished, the case was half the size it had been when it came out of the oven. But, Vita thought, it looked pretty good. No one would ever know.

Maria wouldn’t get any burned bits, and Pete would get loads of brandy, and the kids would pick off the icing, and Polly would just be delighted to see that her mother had followed tradition and gone to the effort of making a cake for Christmas.

“Plus,” Gavin noted as he congratulated her, “we already know how nice it tastes.”

Vita beamed with pride. She was always at her best when she was called on to be a hostess, and she was secretly thrilled that the villa in Portugal had been flooded.

And the cake might even be called a success…

1st January

When Gavin went to put the tin of Quality Street that their neighbours had given them out of temptation’s way (they’d already eaten two boxes over Christmas between them all), he knocked something else off its shelf on the pantry.

Fumbling to catch it, he said, “Hey, Vita love – what’s in this tin?”

The lid of the tin lifted with a pop and Vita peered over Gavin’s shoulder as they both looked inside at the small package wrapped in paper.

“Oh!” Vita almost laughed. “We forgot about the cake!”

“We could GET UP LATE and have FRIED Christmas pudding for BRUNCH…”