Merry Christmas

Bad blogger. Not been posting. Bad blogger. (Again a combination of factors – blaming it mostly on Strictly Come Dancing wouldn’t be too far wrong though… )

However, this is Christmas – this made up half of the sermon in church this morning:

It’s been done by the Churches Advertising Network – to get people to look at the nativity story with fresh eyes…

NoNoNoBloPoMo

It’s December now! And no, I didn’t consciously think of November as NoNoBloPoMo (November No Blog Posting Month), if I did have a theme running round my head it was more along the lines of LoGeLiMo (Local Get a Life Month). I AM NOT KNOCKING PEOPLE WHO HAVE ATTEMPTED/SUCCEEDED WITH NaBloPoMo – lots of people found it fun/a useful discipline/a way of refinding the blogging/knitting joy etc etc. However for me the better discipline was to spend much less time on the computer, getting more done round the house and engaging more with my children. It’s been good, and I’ve been spinning and knitting:

You may remember this:
?
– handspun merino. Well it knitted up like this:
– matching scarf and .. er… teacosy. Kind of bright aren’t they? The scarf (a simply K2 P2 rib) is for Adam and the teacosy (from Spindle and Wheel) is as a thank you/Christmas present for my aunt and uncle who gave me the money to buy my wheel.
I’m really rather excited by these – to my mind they look rather like Trekking XXL (in particular these socks) – I’m really enjoying the blended striping. My recipe – spin from the fold, taking a handful of one colour, then the next, then the next – repeat. Part-fill 3 bobbins, then ply them together (not navajo plying – I was after the opposite effect here.)

I’ve also been cooking. Yesterday Ruth and I made Christmas cake.

In the US fruit cake is often looked down upon. Gluten-free girl says:

I’ve never been fond of fruitcake. It just seems too cloying and condensed, like concentrated maraschino cherries. Didn’t Johnny Carson use to joke that there was only one fruitcake in the world, and it just keep getting re-gifted every year? Bleh.

A little research reveals why our transatlantic cousins have such a negative attitude. My copy of the Southern Living Cookbook (there are more modern editions available, but this is the one I have) uses butter, sugar, vanilla (hmm), lemon extract, eggs, flour – all good so far, but then we get to – 3 cups of yellow, green and red candied pineapple and 2 cups of red and green candied cherries! The rest of the recipe becomes irrelevant – no, No, NO and again NO

If anyone wants to try a traditional-style British fruitcake – and especially if anyone needs it to be gluten-free, here is my adaptation of Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney’s recipe from Healthy Gluten-free Eating

Christmas Cake – this should ideally be made at least a month before eating

4oz (110g)chopped apricots (the recipe uses glace cherries, but these are incredibly hard to find gluten-free, and I don’t really like them anyway).
2oz (50g) flaked almonds (smash them up a bit – or use whole almonds and blanch and chop them)
12oz (350g) sultanas
12oz (350g) raisins
12oz (350g) currants
10oz (275g) ground almonds
2oz (50g) dates – chopped
2oz (50g) dried figs – chopped
1oz (25g) crystallised ginger – chopped
grated rind of 1 lemon
grated rind of 1 orange
2 1/2fl oz (60ml) Drambuie (or whiskey, or brandy etc etc)
8oz (225g) butter
8oz (225g) soft brown sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
4oz (110g) rice flour (I used Dove’s Farm gluten-free plain white flour)
2 teaspoons xanthan gum (this is to make the gluten-free flour act a bit more ‘normally’ – if the gluten-free thing isn’t a problem for you, just use ordinary white flour and ignore the xanthan gum).
1 large cooking apple

Use a 9 inch round tin or an 8 inch square tin. (I find round tins easier to line and square cakes easier to cut… ) Grease and line the tin with greaseproof paper – making sure that it comes well above the side of the tin – at least half as high again. (The recipe says to use brown paper, and line it with greaseproof paper. I didn’t have any brown paper, so I simply used double-thickness greaseproof.)

Mix the dried fruit, the bashed flaked almonds, 2oz (50g) of the ground almonds, the grated lemon and orange rind and about half the Drambuie and leave for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the eggs.

Add the flour, xanthan gum, spice and remaining ground almonds and stir in gently.

Grate the apple, and add it and the dried fruit/nut mix, stirring in thoroughly but gently.

Put the cake mix in the prepared tin. Make a slight hollow in the middle, smooth the top with a wet hand.

Lay a sheet of brown paper over the top of the tin and cook at 180C/350F for 1 hour. If your eggs are fresh from the chickens at the bottom of the garden, then you can lick the bowl out.

Then reduce the temperature to 160C/325F for a further 3-3.5 hours. Test by inserting a skewer into the centre – the cake is cooked if it comes out completely clean.

Pour the rest of the Drambuie over the cake straight away and leave to cool in the tin.

The next day remove the cake from the tin, but leave the paper. Wrap in extra greaseproof paper and aluminium foil until needed. When ready to eat, it can be covered with marzipan and royal icing.

Now I’m sure that any Brits reading will have their own recipe, and may look on some of the above with horror, but still – the cake it makes is dark and rich and delicious.