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Fruitcake, to be precise. Who likes it? Anyone? Bueller? Well, I do. I love fruitcake and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The holiday season wouldn’t be complete without a slice or two of the dark, moist, fragrant confection. The best fruitcakes are baked early to allow flavours to develop and intensify. I start mine at least a month before Christmas.  Firstly, dried fruits are dumped in a bowl and doused with a glug or two of booze. Some use rum. Some use brandy. I use whisky. Canadian Club Rye Whisky to be precise. Tasting of the fruit at this stage is mandatory. <grin> After allowing the fruit to soak up the booze for at least twelve hours (I give it an entire day [more time to taste test the fruit]) it’s stirred into a batter rich with butter, eggs and sugar. Also those warm spices that scream holiday baking – nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and allspice.  The batter is plunked in a lined baking pan and baked at a low temperature for hours. 285 degrees Fahrenheit for four hours to be precise. The house smells divine. It smells like the holidays of my childhood. Then the cake needs to cool completely. Given its density, that takes a couple hours.  To help keep the cake moist, and to aid in its longevity, the cake is “fed” with additional booze, whisky in this case, at regular intervals. I feed mine weekly by sprinkling a few tablespoons of whisky over the top of the cake before tightly re-wrapping it in parchment paper and tin foil. Normally I’d store the cake in a large cake tin but IT’S STILL IN STORAGE!
Ahem. Perhaps it’s time for another cake feeding. And I might just have a tipple, too. Do you like fruitcake? Have you tried a homemade version that’s nicely steeped in spirits? Cheers! P.S. Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to all my American friends and relations!
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A few weeks ago I mentioned Homemade Cookie Day – celebrated weekly in this house. Today is Homemade Bread Day, also celebrated regularly around here. I love homemade bread. Both the making and the eating. There was a time I would hand-knead the dough for upwards of ten minutes (good workout for the arm muscles) but then I got a stand mixer and now I let the machine do the hard work. I still enjoy the fruits of its labors though. And I still hand-knead an old family recipe for Shredded Wheat Bread that makes too much dough to fit in the bowl of my mixer. Anyway, back to the homemade bread. Yum! You’re supposed to wait until the bread cools completely – ‘cause of steam or molecules or something – before slicing but that’s a rule that begs to be broken. Who can wait when that extraordinarily luscious smell is permeating the house? When that golden loaf of deliciousness is sitting on the cooling rack, its flanks exposed to the air and the razor sharp bread knife? When whoever made that ridiculous rule obviously possessed too much willpower than was good for him? (Must have been a him ‘cause I suspect that rule was foisted on us back when most leaders in the culinary world were men.) One of my favourite quick and easy breads is English Muffin Toasting Bread from the geniuses at King Arthur Flour. 
So good. My mouth is watering just thinking of a slice of this bad boy, lightly toasted and slathered with butter (real butter, of course). Heaven! As I was saying to my friend Cara, homemade bread is my kryptonite. Do you make your own bread? Have a favourite recipe? Cheers! *This post contains an affiliate link. As I mentioned last week, I’m in full-on pumpkin spice flavoured foods mode. I baked these pumpkin cookies and took them to our friend’s house for our weekend stay. They were a definite hit. And boy, were they a nice treat during our deconstruction/demolition project. The recipe only calls for one cup of canned pumpkin puree so, hm…What to do with the remaining pumpkin? Well, I’m giving this recipe a try. Pumpkin Roll Bars Janet made these and passed along the recipe so I know they’ll be tasty. I’ll let you know what Hubby and I think.  The mainland as seen from the lighthouse at Boar’s Head.
Cheers! All I can think of is pumpkin spice. I don’t believe there is a pumpkin spice wine, but I could be wrong. Let me know if such a thing exists. In the meantime, I’m craving baked goods with all the pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, cloves layers of flavour. We had pumpkin pie the weekend before last for Thanksgiving, but that was a long time ago. Right now we’re working our way through Hubby’s birthday apple pie. So tasty. But the minute the last piece is eaten I’m making my favourite autumn cookies. Iced Pumpkin Cookies These are so good. It is literally impossible to eat just one. If you say you can eat just one I’ll know you’re telling a fib. Or you are a Cyborg. The only change I make to the recipe is I add ¼ teaspoon of ground ginger to the cookie dough. And I increase the frosting ingredients (because you can never have too much frosting, am I right?) to 3 cups icing sugar, 2 tablespoons melted butter, and additional milk or cream, depending on the humidity of the day. The amount of vanilla stays the same. Goodness gracious, my mouth is watering just thinking about these gems. I’m going to serve larger slices of pie so I can get to these cookies faster. Do you have a favourite pumpkin spice recipe? Cheers! *Note: I use these shiny baking sheets so the cookie bottoms don’t get too dark. And I line my baking pans with parchment paper to make baking and clean-up easier. |
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