One thing I missed in our first Christmas in Japan, was the Christmas cakes we would eat in Australia. For me it's the taste of Christmas. The Christmas cakes in Japan, just don't do it for me: Firstly they are strawberry cakes; secondly they are sponge (more air than cake) cakes; thirdly they don't last much longer than Christmas day. This time I really wanted to have some of the Christmas cake that I was used to and I wanted to share them with as many people here as possible, so I emailed my parents who kindly sent us not one but three huge Australian Christmas cakes. Australian Christmas cakes are solid and chunky; contain dried fruit; last so long that they can be stored away for the next two Christmases if you don't finish them this year!
The only thing was, we needed custard to serve with them and in Japan you can't by custard in milk cartons like in a Australia, neither can you buy custard powder. So Ritsuko and I sourced a recipe for custard from the net. Then I went and bought the required ingredients and we got to work on making the custard. In the end it the custard turned out to be the best custard we had ever tried that I'm not going back to instant custard again!