It's 4.30 am and I am in the kitchen. Making my Christmas cakes. Well, actually setting all the dried fruit to soak. Will beat up the batter and bake the goodies later today, Sunday.
Who is in the kitchen at such a daft hour? Early risers? No, those who don't get to bed at a reasonable time!
Hi, Twinky. Can you tell me about your Christmas cakes?
Absolutely stuffed full of vine fruits: sultanas, raisins, currants. Also dates, cherries, pineapple, prunes, and of course mixed peel and glace ginger. All soaked overnight in orange juice and brandy. Not called "heavy fruit cake" for no reason!
Today, there'll be the cake mix with butter, flour, various spices, black treacle (you might call it molasses), eggs and the usual stuff that goes into cake making.
Finally, will get turned into one large round tin and three smaller loaf tins. I make a pattern on top with nuts and cherries, because when finished, I don't ice them, don't like icing. Then the cakes are baked for 4 or more hours. The house smells wonderful for the rest of the day, and when I get up next morning.
And then, when I can turn them out, next day or whenever, they get pricked with a toothpick and the holes filled with brandy. They'll get soaked in brandy every week until Christmas.
I keep the big one, and the smaller ones I give away as much-enjoyed gifts. Eaten in small quantities (because it's very rich), and - well, my big cake will last a couple of years. I still have a bit from last year; and finished the one made 2 years ago some time in this summer, some 18 months or so after being made. It was as delicious as when first cut; better, maybe. The smaller ones, however, are quickly and enthusiastically eaten by the recipients.
Absolutely stuffed full of vine fruits: sultanas, raisins, currants. Also dates, cherries, pineapple, prunes, and of course mixed peel and glace ginger. All soaked overnight in orange juice and brandy. Not called "heavy fruit cake" for no reason!
Today, there'll be the cake mix with butter, flour, various spices, black treacle (you might call it molasses), eggs and the usual stuff that goes into cake making.
Finally, will get turned into one large round tin and three smaller loaf tins. I make a pattern on top with nuts and cherries, because when finished, I don't ice them, don't like icing. Then the cakes are baked for 4 or more hours. The house smells wonderful for the rest of the day, and when I get up next morning.
And then, when I can turn them out, next day or whenever, they get pricked with a toothpick and the holes filled with brandy. They'll get soaked in brandy every week until Christmas.
I keep the big one, and the smaller ones I give away as much-enjoyed gifts. Eaten in small quantities (because it's very rich), and - well, my big cake will last a couple of years. I still have a bit from last year; and finished the one made 2 years ago some time in this summer, some 18 months or so after being made. It was as delicious as when first cut; better, maybe. The smaller ones, however, are quickly and enthusiastically eaten by the recipients.
Are you hungry yet?
Damn, this sounds good.
An old friend of mine used to make the very same thing! He, too, aged his for many months, even years. I can’t remember if he kept the cakes in his wine cellar or the fridge - I think he aged them with his wine. I loved them!
In the U.S. they are called fruit cakes. They usually get a bad rap. Probably because they are mass produced and full of artificial preservatives and mysterious candied fruit and not boozy at all.
It is too early for me to get excited about Christmas baking and I don’t know if any baking will get done specifically for the holidays. I do usually have a loaf of bread rising in my bread machine, though.
Last week, while looking through the pantry, there were a few boxes of Oreo cookies, so made a dessert with an Oreo crust, a layer of cream cheese with dream whip, followed up with layer of chocolate pudding, followed with another layer of dream whip, and topped off with broken pieces of Oreos.
This is very rich and delicious, and a good thing I have friends to give some to, because there are too many calories for just two people to finish off.
STL, that sounds really calorie-high. The cream cheese I'd like but dream whip - ugh. A cheesecake with most of those ingredients would be much more to my taste.
Nathan, a Christmas cake is a heavy fruit cake. A celebration of the richness of imported vine fruits, developed at a time when people didn't have much. (Of course, such are very easily obtainable now.) Commonly these cakes are iced. First the fruit cake is covered in marzipan, then royal icing coats that. Royal icing is a hard icing, principally sugar, mixed with a small amount of glycerine to make it workable, and water. (Commercial icing can be purchased, to be rolled out - it's disgusting.) Then the top of the royal icing is decorated.
I dislike marzipan and hard icing, and my cakes are uncovered but decorated on top with almonds and (though not on this occasion) glace cherries. Made like a wedding cake might be, not the increasingly-common sponge-cake variety, but a "real" cake.
You folks will be coming up for Thanksgiving dinners soon. What's cooking?
I was over there one year for Thanksgiving, spent the time with Ex10 and her family. Awesome time.
Usually turkey, but it might be game hens this year; crawfish and andouille cornbread dressing; roasted winter squash; green salad; pumpkin and pecan pies.
The turkey carcass simmers overnight to become turkey stock for the turkey and andouille gumbo we make on Friday.
STL, that sounds really calorie-high. The cream cheese I'd like but dream whip - ugh. A cheesecake with most of those ingredients would be much more to my taste.
No doubt thry are high in calories, but no one has turned them down yet. I was just cleaning out the pantry—-now I have too many saltine crackers—-any suggestions on using them up?
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Nathan_Jr
Hi, Twinky. Can you tell me about your Christmas cakes?
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Twinky
Absolutely stuffed full of vine fruits: sultanas, raisins, currants. Also dates, cherries, pineapple, prunes, and of course mixed peel and glace ginger. All soaked overnight in orange juice and brandy. Not called "heavy fruit cake" for no reason!
Today, there'll be the cake mix with butter, flour, various spices, black treacle (you might call it molasses), eggs and the usual stuff that goes into cake making.
Finally, will get turned into one large round tin and three smaller loaf tins. I make a pattern on top with nuts and cherries, because when finished, I don't ice them, don't like icing. Then the cakes are baked for 4 or more hours. The house smells wonderful for the rest of the day, and when I get up next morning.
And then, when I can turn them out, next day or whenever, they get pricked with a toothpick and the holes filled with brandy. They'll get soaked in brandy every week until Christmas.
I keep the big one, and the smaller ones I give away as much-enjoyed gifts. Eaten in small quantities (because it's very rich), and - well, my big cake will last a couple of years. I still have a bit from last year; and finished the one made 2 years ago some time in this summer, some 18 months or so after being made. It was as delicious as when first cut; better, maybe. The smaller ones, however, are quickly and enthusiastically eaten by the recipients.
Are you hungry yet?
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Twinky
In the oven now. Smells delish.
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Nathan_Jr
Damn, this sounds good.
An old friend of mine used to make the very same thing! He, too, aged his for many months, even years. I can’t remember if he kept the cakes in his wine cellar or the fridge - I think he aged them with his wine. I loved them!
In the U.S. they are called fruit cakes. They usually get a bad rap. Probably because they are mass produced and full of artificial preservatives and mysterious candied fruit and not boozy at all.
It’s been years since I’ve had the real deal.
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Stayed Too Long
It is too early for me to get excited about Christmas baking and I don’t know if any baking will get done specifically for the holidays. I do usually have a loaf of bread rising in my bread machine, though.
Last week, while looking through the pantry, there were a few boxes of Oreo cookies, so made a dessert with an Oreo crust, a layer of cream cheese with dream whip, followed up with layer of chocolate pudding, followed with another layer of dream whip, and topped off with broken pieces of Oreos.
This is very rich and delicious, and a good thing I have friends to give some to, because there are too many calories for just two people to finish off.
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Twinky
STL, that sounds really calorie-high. The cream cheese I'd like but dream whip - ugh. A cheesecake with most of those ingredients would be much more to my taste.
Nathan, a Christmas cake is a heavy fruit cake. A celebration of the richness of imported vine fruits, developed at a time when people didn't have much. (Of course, such are very easily obtainable now.) Commonly these cakes are iced. First the fruit cake is covered in marzipan, then royal icing coats that. Royal icing is a hard icing, principally sugar, mixed with a small amount of glycerine to make it workable, and water. (Commercial icing can be purchased, to be rolled out - it's disgusting.) Then the top of the royal icing is decorated.
I dislike marzipan and hard icing, and my cakes are uncovered but decorated on top with almonds and (though not on this occasion) glace cherries. Made like a wedding cake might be, not the increasingly-common sponge-cake variety, but a "real" cake.
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Twinky
You folks will be coming up for Thanksgiving dinners soon. What's cooking?
I was over there one year for Thanksgiving, spent the time with Ex10 and her family. Awesome time.
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Nathan_Jr
Usually turkey, but it might be game hens this year; crawfish and andouille cornbread dressing; roasted winter squash; green salad; pumpkin and pecan pies.
The turkey carcass simmers overnight to become turkey stock for the turkey and andouille gumbo we make on Friday.
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Twinky
Gimme your address, I'm inviting myself!
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Stayed Too Long
No doubt thry are high in calories, but no one has turned them down yet. I was just cleaning out the pantry—-now I have too many saltine crackers—-any suggestions on using them up?
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