I remember my mother, Lois Warren, most often when I am in the kitchen cooking and baking. I can still picture her with a worn apron over her house dress. She was a great cook.

I think my mother did most of the cooking when she was a girl. She had a younger sister who was a tad flighty, and three ravenous brothers. She would have been a “take charge and get things done” oldest sister.

I remember Mom was always clipping recipes out of magazines and The Windsor Star. Our fridge, and even the cupboard doors surrounding the stove were covered in scotch taped recipes of the dishes she wanted to make for her family.

Despite having to cook for a traditional meat and-potatoes-loving husband and four sometimes picky daughters, my mother continued to practise her baking skills. As we got older, our tastes got more sophisticated, and we loved the wonderful desserts she prepared.

Lois was a great fan of Mary Moore, who wrote a daily recipe column syndicated in newspapers across Canada. Mary Moore’s Christmas Cake recipe from the Windsor Star on November 13, 1963, began Lois’ tradition of baking a fruit cake each fall.

Coincidentally, the day she baked that first cake was November 25th , the date of the funeral for President John F. Kennedy. She said she watched the TV coverage of the funeral while the cake was in the oven. My family still has a copy of the recipe she used to make her first cake. She wrote notes right on the recipe.

The cake was declared a success and every year after that she recorded the amounts, the cooking details, and the results- noting any changes to make in the future when she baked her Christmas cake. Each note was dated and saved and passed on to us. Sometimes weather conditions, family members who helped make the cake, and daily events were recorded.

Ingredients were mixed in a very large pink ceramic mixing bowl. One of my sisters still makes her Christmas cake using it every year. My father was tasked with cutting the paper liners for the baking pans.

A traditional fruit cake is complicated to make and contains ingredients not found in every kitchen cupboard. As its name suggests, it contains a large quantity of dried and candied fruit, raisins, dates, nuts and spices. Along with butter and eggs, this cake is not inexpensive to make.

My mother took great care to measure correctly and follow the instructions. The baking pans were buttered and lined with layers of brown paper. The cake took hours to bake in a slow oven with a pan of water on the bottom rack so it would not burn.

Mom could tell a cake was ready to come out of the oven by the smell. The recipe made at least 4 or 5 cakes so sharing with family and friends was customary.

What was not mentioned in the 1963 Christmas Cake recipe was something every good fruit cake baker knows is the key to perfection. It should not be cut or tasted for at least a month to give the flavours time to mellow. The cake must have time to “ripen”. This involves wrapping each cake in rum or brandy-soaked cheesecloth, then wax paper or plastic wrap and foil.

My mother would place cakes in a metal tin and store them in a cool place, usually the attic. It seemed to us that the cake was hidden away until that glorious day, just before Christmas, when an official tasting took place.

I thank Mom for sharing those Christmas cake memories and writing notes to pass this holiday tradition on to her daughters. Mary Moore’s 1977 Christmas Fruit Cake recipe has replaced the 1963 version. But that is a story for another day…

My 2025 cake is “ripening” as I write this story. Two of my sisters, my daughter and a granddaughter were present on the cake making day this year and Mom was watching from above.