"Wayne Boatwright" > wrote in message
. ..
> "Charles Gifford" > wrote in
> hlink.net:
>
> >
> > "Daisy" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> I read a newspaper article yesterday written by a non-USA person, who
> >> had experienced life in a Brtitsh-style culture for a while. The
> >> article was all about fruit cakes.
> >
> > One thing I've noticed in this thread is that, while the thread is
> > titled "Christmas Cake", the conversation so far is about fruit cake,
> > plum cake or similar. For me, a Christmas Cake is similar to a fruit
> > cake, but has layer(s) of marzipan and nice crunchy icing over that.
> >

I am British, and you are quite right that the Christmas cake is fed with
brandy/rum for a week or two and then it is painted with warmed and sieved
apricot jam [jelly] which helps the marzipan to stick the cake is then fully
covered in Marzipan and finally iced with Royal icing and either made to
look like a snow scene if you are not so good at icing or it is flat iced
and them elaborately decorated with piped icing rather like a wedding cake.
Diane