Only one more sleep to go now..... tomorrow morning we head off to spend christmas with our waterboy in tropical Airlie Beach. Waterboy loves boiled fruit cake so guess what we did at 6am this morning? Yep... baked a fruit cake
Wanna see how? All righty then..... get in and buckle up.... :-)
You'll need to preheat your oven to 180 deg C or 350 deg F and gather up the following ingredients .......
WET STUFF
1/4 cup rum or brandy - you choose (or omit this and use 1 cup of water in total instead) or you could really live dangerously and use apple juice.... how rebellious!
3/4 cup water
Put the mixed fruit and slivered almonds into a china bowl and pour over your chosen soaking liquid... then take a big whiff because it smells soooo darn good. DON'T DRINK ANY YET... but you are allowed to sing the chorus of 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful'
Let this soak for at least an hour or preferably overnight
DRY STUFF
1 pkt mixed dried fruit
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice (more if you really like it mixed and spicy)
GOOP
1/4 lb unsalted butter
2 lightly beaten eggs
METAL STUFF
Line an 8" square baking tin with baking paper making sure it's about an inch higher than the sides
You'll now need to....
Throw this stuff into a saucepan and boil it for 3 minutes
~ the soggy fruit and almonds, the brown sugar, the butter, the rest of the liquid, and the bicarb soda ~
let the mixture cool in the saucepan then add the eggs, sifted flours and mixed spice. Pour it into the lined cake tin (it will look like a square tin full of beef stroganoff but it will smell and taste like fruit cake batter, I promise... at this stage it's best not to eat too much of it, just a couple of spoonfuls)
and bake for about 70 mins... but check it after 60 mins. Leave it in the tin to cool a bit before you turn it out
Yum... it's pretty good. It likes to hang around with lemon and raspberry jam drops and a whole bunch of choc chunk cookies
Today I worked out an ingenious way of making the 'ponds' that hold the jam and lemon butter
Turn your vanilla extract bottle upside down and use the top to push a well in the centre - make sure it's clean of course.... :-)
AND.... use a squeezy bottle to deposit the gooey red and gold puddles
Tres clever....
Another very clever idea is to stitch up a few of Vicki's sweet 'Spring Flowers' designs and make them into some hot pot holders ... one each for three special people. I added the words 'Laugh' 'Dream' 'Create'
Simply quilt the squares using a double thickness of cotton batting, trim them to 6 1/2" sq and use a strip from a jelly roll to bind them, making a hanging loop at the end
Make sure you fold the binding to the back before sewing across the final side. The bit hanging off is used to make the hanging loop
One more thing to share.... the furbies are always a little puzzled at xmas time. Strange smells, strange glittery things hanging around and strangely familiar sounds.... like this little wooden tree that Moo brought back from Germany a couple of years ago. It plinkles out 'silent night' as it slowly turns. Ratty's quite flummoxed by the whole thing.....
I'll be out of the loop until Christmas eve... waterboy doesn't have a computer (fancy that, a house without a computer!) and the little women don't fly up until xmas eve, hopefully with a laptop under their wings
Have a great week, try not to get too frazzled at the grocery store... hideous task that one!
seeya in a few days time
Cheryl xxx
