Christmas Fruit Cake.
I started the "fruit" yesterday. I don't really measure the fruit components because Ed usually picks it up and he brings home whatever he thinks is good this year. And its an opportunity to clean out the cupboard of the bits of raisins and currents left over from other things. I guess the closest I come to measuring, is getting the weight (in this case 5+ pounds). From their I adjust the recipe.
What recipe, you ask. This year I went with a dark fruit cake recipe from Cooks.com.
My mother used to make fruit cake ( and I hated it as a kid unless she made it with fruit gums) and I don't have her recipe, a family recipe. I suspect hers came from her cooking bible, an old Fanny Farmer. Its like Rum Balls. I search every year and make a different one each year. They just don't seem like what I remember.
So all this candied fruit was mixed up with some whiskey (that's what we had in the house this year. I prefer rum so I will alter it as the year goes along. A YEAR you asked. Just wait.)
I stirred in a cup of flour last night but it looks like the additional moisture will require another cup of flour. Gotta remember so I deduct it from the recipe amounts. (2 cups of flour gone)
This is one of the very few times I get out my baby. My standard Kitchen Aid mixer. When I had a KITCHEN I had a separate areas for baking. and it sat out all the time, easy to grab and use. But now that I live in an excuse for a kitchen it sits on a shelf in the basement until it's really needed. For fruit cake, its really needed.
(I miss baking but I no longer have two bottomless pit boys living at home. sigh!)
Spices galore mixed in with the reduced flour amount. This is another time when I clean out my cupboard. They do go stale so some of them I had to grind from the whole. They stay fresher that way. It's probably about the only time I DO grind my own, but I have little use for mace or all spice through the year. Cinnamon we buy by the baggie.
I greased and lined 3 spring form cake pans. I never quite know how much batter I will end up with so I like to be prepared. In this case I only needed the two large ones.
And three hours later, (actually 5 start to finish) I have TWO LUSIOUS cakes.
I'll do that at least 3 more times throughout the summer ( yes you read right...these are not for eating right now) and when it comes time to haul them out to eat ( about this time next year) they will get another dose of booze!
Can't drive after my cake buddy! LOL
This chore always hangs over my head around this time of year but finally when the moon and stars align.... I just do it!
Yummy eye candy.
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