Fresh fruit cake...

We all know a fruit cake should mature for at least three months, but I have to tell you that my fresh fruit cake tested pretty good yesterday.  In fact, it was scrumptious.

 
It looked pretty cute too!  The lacy ribbon on the bottom was saved from the parents' wedding cake and I had the dusky pink ribbon in my 'ribbon' box.  The cake looks nothing like I'd intended it to, but I'm pretty happy with the path my inspiration took me down.

I made the little flowers and did a poor job of piping their centres (the icing wasn't soft enough and I was in a hurry so I didn't go back and remix it as I should have).

Our littlest Chickadee's parents loved the cake and I suppose that's all I ever really wanted. 

April Blackbird

This and that...

I love Myrtle!  What a great job you did Arabella.  Especially as a first effort.  We'll have to have a 'home made' toy section in our shop one day.

Thought you might be interested to know that all four fruit cakes came out fantastically.  I am really happy with the look (and the smell) of them all.  I did cut the end off the long loaf I made for 'home'... far too fresh to eat really, but it was delicious and will improve with keeping.

It's far too hot in Sydney to be making fruit cakes!  The last thing I want is for them to start growing mould as they 'mature' in my cupboard.  Ask UK Chickie and she'll bear me out... my grocery cupboard gets as hot as an oven somedays even though I make sure to leave the door open so the cupboard can breathe.

The cakes have had to be wrapped in cling wrap and stored in my fridge.  If you know me, you'll know that my fridge isn't all that big.  Some of the cakes are going to have to be farmed out for keeping.  I don't want to send my cakes overseas until the weather has cooled either.  One never knows how long they'll get to stand on a dock somewhere.  In this heat, it's not a chance I want to take.

Next step... make some tiny little flowers for the Christening cake.  It won't take long as I don't need many.  I love making fondant flowers!  Always looking for an excuse to practice the art!  The icing has to be almost as fine as a real petal to give me the look I like.  Getting the paste 'just right' in this heat is going to be a challenge.

I'll let you know how it goes.

April Blackbird

Cake's in the oven and the house smells just wonderful.

I finally got that cake into the oven.  Actually, technically it's cakes.  Not cake.  I divided the mixture up into four different size and shape pans.  Why?  Well, it's not going to be a big Christening so we won't need such a huge cake.  We'll be able to store some cake for Christmas and we'll be able to send some to distant relatives whom we know would have loved to join us for the day.

Like a great-grandmother and great-grandfather in South Africa.  Wonder if they'll get it if we post it to them?  One never can tell.

It took me ages to mix the cake this morning.  I made sure I'd weighed out all the ingredients and had everything ready to go.  Finally used my head and didn't follow the instructions...  I'd made a mental note to myself that I had to do something different this time.

So, I mixed the butter and sugar together in my old Kenwood (it's 48 years old now!) until I had a pale yellow, fluffy mix.  Then I spooned the mixture out equally into three different bowls.  First lot went back into the Kenwood and I slowly beat in 5 eggs.  Then I added a third of the sifted flour and other dry ingredients.  I repeated the process for both the remaining bowls.

Hey, that wasn't that hard!  Why couldn't the recipe book have suggested doing it this way?  Does everyone have a commercial grade mixer?  Nooooo. (You want to try mixing 1 kg butter, 1.2 kg castor sugar, 16 eggs, 1.25 kg flour in one bowl!  It's exhausting work.)

Then, I shared the HUGE fruit and nut mixture (which I'd 'floured' well before hand so I know it's not going to sink to the bottom like a torpedoed U boat!) between my three bowls of perfect cake batter.  It mixed in really easily and I don't feel as though my arm is going to fall off anytime soon.  Which is how my arm usually feels when I make this cake.

I bunged it all back into my seriously HUGE soup pot and mixed it all in together...just in case there was any one reason that one mixture was better than the next.  Had to add my bicarb dissolved in vinegar last and that really helped to 'lighten' the mixture.

Another thing that truly bugs me about this recipe... it says to 'spoon the mixture into the pans'.  It would have been helpful if they'd included more specific instructions.  I know now how much to spoon in, but it really had me guessing the first time I made this recipe.And just by the way, this mixture DOES NOT, I repeat DOES NOT fit into two 225mm pans.  Which I now know.  There's nothing worse than scurrying about the kitchen trying to find bigger pans and brown paper at the last moment.

My oven isn't wonderful so I've had to put the cakes in at 120 degrees with the fan on.  I've been watching the cakes and 2 1/2 hours later, they're looking really good.  I just have to be careful not to overcook them.

Funny thing about baking... the smell always takes my appetite away.  I should get myself a job in a bakery.

I'm off to make myself a well earned cuppa now.  It wasn't the best day to choose to bake.  The temps got into the mid 30's again today.  Thankfully, there's a lovely cool breeze coming off the sea now.

April Blackbird

The mysterious art of glazing fruit.

I have this wonderful fruit cake recipe that I sometimes make for special celebrations. Why only 'sometimes'?  Well, it's always been extremely difficult to find the variety and quality of glazed fruit the recipe calls for. 

Quality?  Yes, quality.  Most of the glazed cherries we buy in the shops today leave a lot to be desired.  We get excellent glazed ginger and pineapple in Sydney, but buying glazed oranges,kumquats and figs is difficult to say the least. 

Sure, I can buy dried figs.  I can even buy organic dried figs (which means there is no sulphur added), but to buy glazed fruit I have to be sure that I visit a gourmet farmers market or make the trip into Paddy's Markets in Haymarket.

So, I decided to make my own glazed oranges this time around.  I didn't have long to do it as I really needed to get my fruit chopped up and soaking.  This cake is HUGE and it takes a lot of work to prepare the fruit. 

I found a jiffy recipe for Candied Orange Slices on The Repressed Pastry Chef blog and I followed the instructions easily.  The finished product is quite delicious and I was happy to use it this time around.


However, I have decided that glazing is fun!  So I plan to make a batch of glazed fruit the 'old fashioned' way. I found a great recipe on OChef which should give me the type and quality of 'glazing' I am looking for.  It's a long process, but I reckon it will be worth the time and effort in the end.

I just have to be sure that I stop 'tasting' my wares along the way.  The oranges were so delicious I had a major will power battle on my hands.

I'll let you know how my cake baking goes.  The ingredients get mixed and the cakes get baked tomorrow. Sixteen eggs, 1 kilogram of butter, 1.5kgs of flour...  thank goodness I have a seriously HUGE pot to mix it all together in. 

April Blackbird