Eric The Viking
Established Member
- Joined
- 19 Jan 2010
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Nothing to do with the snow, well maybe a tiny bit:
My quandry is "crosscut or rip?" mainly: there's no discernable grain, but there is texture, definitely.
Here's the thing: as connoisseurs of fine bakery will know, a typical Christmas Cake only improves with age. Ours, this last December, originated around August and has been regularly fed all kinds of entertaining things, including rum and cherry brandy (intravenously, or at least with the aid of a hypodermic). By around mid-October, you could hear it humming "songs from the shows" in its tin (well, crate really), and by late November you needed protective gloves and a whip, and that was before the icing.
Which brings me to the icing... It always seems such a shame to smother it (and so young!), but I suppose that's tradition really. After all we do eat duckling, and lamb, too, but Stilton gets a proper run, at least in this household ("if you can't smell it down in the village, it's not ripe enough",etc.). Anyway, by the month after Christmas the icing isn't bad, but it is, er, robust. Nobody's spotted the impromptu repair I did to the lounge marble fireplace three years ago, but that was an exceptional year (and I had a new GOP tool to play with at the time).
Normally, and that means this year, by mid/late January, it's getting a bit too tough for normal kitchen technology. I noted this when I dropped the bread knife this afternoon, because my wrist had started to swell up, and the serrations had almost worn off.
So if not the bread knife, nor the electric carving knife (never mind the safety aspects, that's way too risky - it's not MY knife, if you see what I mean), what is the best tool for the job?
I'm thinking tenon saw or (rip) Dovetail saw, but I'm in need of expert advice
E.
My quandry is "crosscut or rip?" mainly: there's no discernable grain, but there is texture, definitely.
Here's the thing: as connoisseurs of fine bakery will know, a typical Christmas Cake only improves with age. Ours, this last December, originated around August and has been regularly fed all kinds of entertaining things, including rum and cherry brandy (intravenously, or at least with the aid of a hypodermic). By around mid-October, you could hear it humming "songs from the shows" in its tin (well, crate really), and by late November you needed protective gloves and a whip, and that was before the icing.
Which brings me to the icing... It always seems such a shame to smother it (and so young!), but I suppose that's tradition really. After all we do eat duckling, and lamb, too, but Stilton gets a proper run, at least in this household ("if you can't smell it down in the village, it's not ripe enough",etc.). Anyway, by the month after Christmas the icing isn't bad, but it is, er, robust. Nobody's spotted the impromptu repair I did to the lounge marble fireplace three years ago, but that was an exceptional year (and I had a new GOP tool to play with at the time).
Normally, and that means this year, by mid/late January, it's getting a bit too tough for normal kitchen technology. I noted this when I dropped the bread knife this afternoon, because my wrist had started to swell up, and the serrations had almost worn off.
So if not the bread knife, nor the electric carving knife (never mind the safety aspects, that's way too risky - it's not MY knife, if you see what I mean), what is the best tool for the job?
I'm thinking tenon saw or (rip) Dovetail saw, but I'm in need of expert advice
E.
