Help! I'm baking xmas cakes ready for a xmas fayre at the end of November. I'm baking traditional English fruit cakes laced with brandy - not the cheapest of cakes to make a mistake with. Anyway, I've tipped one cake out and stupidly half missed the cooling tray - resulting in a cake that's now in chunks. What the hell can I do with it now? (apart from covering it in custard and letting my husband devour it). I've seen recipes that turn cake crumbs into truffles, but as there is more fruit than cake I don't know how that would work out. Does anyone have any recipes that I can use? I'm still hanging on to the hope that I can make something from this disaster to sell at the fayre!
Thanks

you could use it to make trifle,
that would be a delicious variation.

If you have any chocolate truffle molds (the bigger ones) you could make a white chocolate coating, let that freeze, and add a little buttercream and then the fruitcake crumbs and then top it off with a bit more chocolate. If you've ever seen those tiffany cake truffles, it's along the same line. You can't tell you've used a "broken" cake with the truffles and they really look elegant.

You could also add a little bit of marzipan to the truffle or even almond buttercream. I thought of this when I had the same disaster happen to me last year. I called them my "specialty" christmas truffle.

HTH
Kathy

Sorry I can't think of anything that could be used for the fayre but you might want to try this ice cream recipe or make bread and butter pudding with it - i don't like either but apparently if you like Xmas cake they are both very yummy!

http://www.thechristmascake.com/recipes.html

for me you cant beat squishing them into balls or forming them like a truffle so they will stay together and coating them in chocolate. Oh my they taste good. could even add more booze lol its christmas (nearly) after all. Im sure I've bought these somewhere or had them I can almost taste them. Better than christmas cake for me any day and you can sooo justify just one more. Hope that helps at all.

Thanks everyone!
I like the sound of the truffles, especially the 'Tiffany' type ones - unfortunately I don't have any moulds - I've recently moved to Greece and don't yet speak Greek, so that's my next challenge - trying to ask where I can buy some!
I've also looked at the Christmas Cake website and the ice cream cake looks delicious - isn't the cake a bit hard to bite into when it has just come out of the freezer and if you leave it to defrost a bit doesn't the ice cream melt?

Forgot! The trifle also seems like a good idea, I'll have a think about that one - maybe I could make mini trifles with patisserie cream on top (hopefully it would last a bit longer than fresh cream) to sell at the fayre.

Mind you at this rate I won't have any crumbs to worry about - my husband has already shamed me into giving him a chunk of the mangled cake - the stuck out bottom lip did it!

Looby

So sorry this happened to you I just started on my own xmas cake orders, traditional fruit cake ones so far.

You can use any alcohol you like in fruit cake, I used whiskey in mine but anything at all can be used, going to try grand marnier next.

Always leave the cake to cool completely in the tin a good hour before turning out. HTH

I would go for the icecream idea or the truffles too! Would love to know how they turn out. If you use more alcohol to bind them you will not have to freeze the truffles they will keep just fine in a parchment lined tin!