Christmas Sweet Tooth

Christmas Roast went well - turkey, gammon ham, roast beef; roasted courgettes,sweet potatoes, pumpkin; roast potatoes; roasted parsnips; yorkshire pudding. mmmm. what a feat! Started cooking from 3pm but glad it's all over. New Year's is going to be much simpler.

Due to mum's request, made a little Lim Family Fruitcake. Recipe was taken from Martha Stewart Living - the Backhouse Family Fruitcake but the only difference in mine is the pre-soaking of dried fruit in tea overnight and the dousing of Cognac instead of rum. For other fruitcake recipes from martha, try this link: http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=
5ecfb06fa67b4110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=fruitcake&rsc=header_1

Note, the recipe yields quite a lot. I made a loaf cake, a 20cm round cake and 6 muffins, noted i did double the recipe since one of the cakes was meant for eve lunch at the gran's. However, there's never a hard and fast rule to fruitcake. You can be as generous as you like. Although less is more, with fruitcake I believe you can be as crazy as you like, just remember not to overdo it or u'd hardly have any cake left and it'd be all fruit!

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 4 ounces glaceed or dried apricot, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces (1/2 cup)
• 4 ounces glaceed or dried pineapple, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces (1/2 cup)
• 8 ounces dates, pitted, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
• 4 ounces dried cherries (1/2 cup)
• 4 ounces whole blanched almonds (3/4 cup)
• 8 ounces Brazil nuts (1 1/2 cup)
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup light-brown sugar, firmly packed
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons rum, plus more for dousing

Soak dried fruit in tea overnight. Use whatever fruit you like best. I used dried dates, apricots, currants, raisins and cranberries. Cover and let the fruit absorb the tea. The next day, when you're ready to begin, pour away excess tea and put aside while you prep the rest of the cake.
Sift the flours, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed; add eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add vanilla and rum. (I used cognac as we'd run out of rum, of course rum is usually the best christmas liquer for fruitcake. But i personally like cognac very much!)
In two additions, add dry ingredients to butter. Scrape down bowl between additions. Fold in fruit and nuts. Pour batter into pan. Bake until golden and set, about an hour. Cover with foil if it colours too much.
Cool on a wire rack. Remove from pan; discard parchment. Wrap in cheesecloth or muslin. Douse with 1/2 cup rum. Store in a cool, dry place; douse with 1/2 cup rum weekly for at least 1 month before serving.

After the fruitcake was done, it gave me plenty of time to make my mince pies.
Mince pies are easy to make, all you need to do really is make the tart pastry and you can use storebought ready-made mince meat (stick with M&S, they do well good ones) and throw it in the oven. Then sprinkle with icing sugar. And whilst this is happening, it also gives you time to sort out the mulled wine which you have to be very careful not to let it boil. Red wine simmering with sugar, an orange slice, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves and peppercorn.

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Tea Loaf. A sight for my sore eye.

Yes, I have a swollen eye. The swelling began late last nite while i was watching 'The Forgotten' on HBO. One, I'm a movie junkie. Two, I'm a night owl. Like one of my pals at work, I come alive at nite and I'm a bear till say 10 in the morning. So getting a swelling in my left eye really made me grumpy. It isn't particularly fashionable to walk around looking like a frog you know. And my frustration with a particular organisation's inefficiency (some may know exactly what i'm talkin bout!) didn't help to up my mood at all. Alas, the only way to make me feel better was to whip something up in the kitchen. This tea loaf was a very easy recipe, with minimal prep work or ingredients. And what I liked better about it was that it was EGGLESS! Cool. Real cool.
In addition, it tasted real grandmaish, like some ol' traditional homemade recipe passed down from daughter to daughter. It was moist and crumbly and wasn't overly sweet but humbly pleasant in it's wealth of flavours from the spice. One plus point too was it was so easy to turn out the loaf, it practically fell out when I overturned it! It's definitely a keeper and I'll continue to use and modify it, the only set back for me was that it was a little fragile and cracked easily upon slicing or handling.
This one's a princess. Handle with care and GREAT LOVE.

The recipe below is the original. I've put notes in italics of my own modification.

Tea Loaf (by Sue Lawrence one again. O i do love her)
Ingredients
3/4 cup light muscovado sugar
1 cup sultanas
1 cup currants --*I used dried cranberries for both the tangy taste and colour. Mom taught me that food wasn't just done for eating but for admiring. Presentation is half the battle.
125g unsalted butter
2 tsp mixed spice --*used 1 tsp ground cinnamon & 1/2 - 1 tsp ground cloves
2 scant cups self-raising flour

Place sugar, sultanas, currants, butter and mixed spice in heavy pan with 1 cup cold water.
Heat gently until butter is melted, then remove from heat and allow to cool.
Preheat oven to 180dCelsius.
Once sugar mixture is cold (or at least at rtp), sift in flour and pinch of salt. Combine well with a spoon.
Tip into greased loaf tin, level surface. --*I added dark chocolate chips over the top for prettiness and taste. For something with more spunk and a sexier effect on your taste buds, throw in a quarter cup dark chocolate chunks/morsels/chips. "It really works."
Bake for 58min-1hr.

If you're wondering about the quote above, I'm actually quoting a Russian customer of mine whom I met a couple of days ago. He's wonderfully funny and I was thoroughly entertained. His wife was really craving chocolate and while she went to the supermarket, he'd come by to get a cake for her. We started debating about dark chocolate and the later creation of milk chocolate & white chocolate. The Russians apparently have a special Russian chocolate that is a dark chocolate basically, so dark it's very bitter and it's bitterness is eased with a little sprinkling of sugar. One thing good about this is that you really feel the effect of the cacao without all the distractions of the milk, cream and sugar. The Russians love this dark chocolate because it does somethng with the endorphines bit and it also enhances desire. Thus, people label chocolate as the perfect aphrodisiac. Well, my customer had a very comical face and he was going on and on about how the Europeans came up with the milk chocolate and told the Russians that this new breed of chocolate tasted much better, it's only shortcoming being that it "doesn't work". And to get a taste of what true Russian chocolate is like (unfortunately Singapore doesn't import Russian chocolate), he suggested ROYCE's dark chocolate. Now, he's really got my interest piqued! And though he did say eat it with my boyfriend because "It really works!", I will have to deviate from his instructions because you know why and have the ultimate pleasure of enjoying his substitute Russian chocolate very soon.