New projects, old projects

About 20 years ago I went to Minwaateh Laura Rose's birthday party. It was a quilting party and I began, but never finished, a doll quilt. I finally did something with that old thing:

Also, I have a curry plant:

You asked about the fruit cake

The Christmas Cake turned out well this year. Lucky us! (Although it turns out that people are rather more attached to the "left ski" tradition than I thought. Yellow snow was weak compensation- I'll do better next time!)

Here's what I did: 

I started with a traditional English fruitcake recipe- one that looked like it had all the right components: covered in marzipan and royal icing; full of fruit, booze and butter, with some nuts and spices for flavor and some flour and eggs to stick it all together. I was attracted to this recipe in particular because candied ginger and lemon zest in the batter seemed like a yummy innovation.

Necessary changes: 

SIZE:

Because "nobody likes fruit cake" I divided this recipe into 3 smaller cakes, so no-one would be burdened with too large a quantity. Eliot was clever enough to remember how to calculate the area of a circle so that I knew, approximately, what diameter cake pans to use for a big, medium and little cake

(A

=

π

r

2 ...area is equal to pi times r squared)

SWEETNESS:

Christmas cake is always too sweet, so I substituted sour apricots, sour cherries and cranberries for 

some of the fruit.

RAISINS:

It called for currants, sultanas (that's golden) and regular raisins. I spent a fruitless afternoon looking 

for golden raisins. I finally drove all the way to trader joe's- I am particularly fond 

of their jumbo raisin medley and just used that in place of all the others.

DAIRY:

Heather can't have butter, and I sympathize- I used refined coconut oil instead.

CAN'T FIND X, Y, Z...

The glacee cherries and candied fruit: no where to be found, so they were omitted without regret.

MARZIPAN ALWAYS TASTES LIKE ALMOND EXTRACT: EW!

Bought some ground almonds and followed a simple marzipan recipe, omitting extract and 

rosewater, for a cleaner, milder almond flavor

SCREECH: 

Why not use Newfoundland rum instead of brandy?

The Recipe:

Combine and soak, covered, for a couple of days:

1/4 pint screech (I added a few tablespoons of home-extracted vanilla, too)

54 oz dried/glacee fruit (the recipe actually wants 44 oz, but my math is weak and I like fruit).

• 16 oz mixed raisins
• 8 oz sour cherries
• 8 oz sour apricots
• 6 oz candied pineapple
• 2 oz candied ginger
• 7 oz dried black mission figs
• 7 oz dried cranberries

On baking day, double line a greased 10 inch cake tin with parchment. Mum always used butter 

wrappers. They work great. Cut a double thickness of parchment the diameter of the pan, for a lid.

If you want multiple cakes, do the math and prep the pans accordingly.

Preheat oven to 300

In a bowl, combine:

zest of 1 or 2 lemons

4 oz almond slivers

7 oz flour

2.5 tsp cinnamon

In another bowl, cream:

12 oz butter, lard, coconut oil or other fat

12 oz brown sugar or somesuch

Beat 6 eggs into the creamed fat, adding some flour mixture between each egg until all are incorporated.

Mix together the batter and boozy fruit. Put batter in prepared pan(s). Make a slight dent in middle

 and cover with parchment disc. Bake for 3-4 hours, till knife comes out "clean". Oh! and if you don't 
use a "water tight" pan, put it on a cookie sheet while baking- it bleeds butter like hell.

Cool in the tin. Once completely cool, unwrap, poke with a fork or skewer, pour 5 T booze over, and 

wrap tightly in parchment and plastic. If you started "late", feed (with 1-2 T booze) weekly for 3 or 4 weeks and then decorate.

If you have 3 or 4 months, feed every 3-4 weeks and then decorate.

To decorate:

Cover cake in a thin layer of jam- I used marmalade because of the omitted peel.

Roll out 3/4 pound of marzipan and cover the cake (This acts as a barrier between white icing and dark cake).

Cover in a thin layer of royal icing and decorate with plastic trees (that used to belong to grandma) and marzipan people on skis. I used turmeric for the yellow snow.

Marzipan:

1.5 c almond meal (blanched makes pale marzipan, unblanched makes brown)

1.5 c powdered sugar

1 egg white

1 t almond extract or rosewater (optional)

Buzz these all in a food processor until "doughy". Adjust ratios as needed.

Royal icing:

1 egg white

7 oz icing sugar

1 t lemon juice

Beat until soft peaks form. Add icing sugar or lemon, if needed to achieve texture.