Our Indian summer weather abandoned us this week for typical November gloom along with our first snow of the season. There was a dusting only and it didn’t last long, washed away by the rain and warm temperatures. A chilly prelude to the next few months.

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I’m knitting and cleaning and thinking about the holidays. As with the last few years, we won’t  be doing the whole gift-buying-into-bankruptcy thing.  Something tells me we’ll have a lot more company in other households this year.

Jack has come up with a pricey new woodworking toy that he wants so that takes care of his list.  And it won’t even need to be wrapped.

We were debating putting up a Christmas tree this year. It dawned on me why I don’t really care about getting one: I don’t like a tree that doesn’t have presents under it. It looks forlorn and out of place, no matter how many lights and baubles are on it. Must have something to do with childhood memories.

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The fruit cake is made and may I say it looks much better than last year’s. It’s lighter in color, absorbs the rum and apple juice more easily and I’m hoping will be more enjoyable. I did a couple things differently.

First, I didn’t stuff it with fruit and nuts. I stuck with 4 cups of nuts and 5 cups of dried fruit which made the batter easier to handle and gives a little higher ratio of cake to fruit.

Secondly, because I didn’t wait until the last minute to bake it, I had time to order this and this and this from King Arthur Flour. Makes the best fruit cake if you’re not into the whole candied cherry thing (bleh, nasty). I added some cranberries and currents and apricots to the mix just because I like to tinker.

Third, I kept an eye on it this year and didn’t let it bake as long so it’s lighter and not burned around the edges (duh).

Fourth, if you don’t use this in baking, I can recommend it completely. I’ve always had a struggle getting pans to release even with liberal applications of oil, butter or oil and flour. With a shot of Baker’s Joy they slide right out. There’s nothing that pisses me off more than a Bundt cake that rips when you try to get it to release from a non-stick pan. Never happens with Baker’s Joy.

I have some other ideas for Christmas baking that I’ll start this week. The annual mincemeat pie for Jack, Christmas cookies, biscotti; our intake of saturated fat from all the butter goes up 10-fold in the last two  months of the year. Worth every calorie.

I have to start with a halfway decent picture at the top to make up for the crummy picture that follows.

I miss the light that makes photography so much easier in the summer. Except for high noon you can always find a place to position your knitting that will show off the details without washing it out, rendering it too dark or otherwise just being a pain in the ass. Even in the house I can usually find a spot near the windows where the natural light is strong enough that I don’t need to supplement it.

These days there’s a very small window of opportunity when the light is clear and bright enough for indoor photography.  I could set up a light box but it’s not that easy to do in this house and requires some forethought. Consequently if there’s only time for a quick picture, you take what you can get and move on.

Which is all a long winded excuse for why the following sock photo is so blah.

Or maybe it’s just a boring photo. Whatever.

Behold my twice-knit socks. Last February I mentioned how several pairs of my socks all had heel blow-outs at the same time . Gail darned one pair, I’ve thrown a pair out and the third pair were so holey that darning really wasn’t an option. So I cut the cuffs off, picked up stitches and started knitting new feet. This time with wooly nylon as a carry along in the heel and toes for extra strength and a snugger (is so a word) fit so there won’t be as much abrasion. Twice as fast as knitting new socks and the chilly temperatures are giving me added incentive to get these done.

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Does anyone else think Thanksgiving is early this  year? Is it just me? I was shocked to discover it’s just three weeks away. There are still so many fall chores that haven’t been completed and my plans to do the holiday baking in November just went through a serious readjustment. There’s time to do the fruitcake if my order for dried fruit and candied peels ever gets here and I’ll make time to bake mincemeat pie for Jack. Biscotti for me. The cookies and stollen will have to wait until December.

Good thing the temp assignment just ended or everybody would get a do-it-yourself fruitcake this year: a bottle of rum, King Arthur flour and candied lemon peel.

This seems the right time of year to post a recipe that will help you use up all that garden produce. This recipe originated with our Aunt Evelyn who used to bring it to family picnics. I’m sure it’s not unique, since it’s just sliced veggies and a warm sweet and sour marinade. There is no oil in this recipe and it only uses a 1/4 cup of sugar for a large amount of vegetables, so it’s diet friendly too. The salt content might be a little high for some, but I expect you could cut back on that and use additional spices to boost the flavor.

You don’t have to use both zucchini and cucumbers if you prefer one over the other. The dressing also works well on other cooked veggies. Green beans come to mind. They’ll get better with age.

The key here is slicing both the zucchini and cucumbers thin. Eventually they’ll become soft and nicely pickled and the dish can be used to top a green salad or served on its own. It keeps forever in the fridge. “Forever” being two weeks before we ate it all up.

Cucumber Zucchini Salad

• 1 small red onion
• 2 medium zucchinis unpeeled
• 2 medium cucumbers peeled
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 2-3 garlic gloves, peeled and slightly crushed
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• black pepper to taste (lots)

Chop up the onion as fine as you like.

Score the zucchini and cucumbers with a fork and cut into very thin slices. A mandolin or food processor makes the job go faster, but a really sharp knife works just as well.

Alternate layers of zucchini, cucumbers and onions in a bowl. You’ll want to leave enough room at the top for the water that will eventually cover the veggies.

Dissolve sugar and salt in a cup of hot water (I think I used boiling, allowed it to cool before pouring over the salad). Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well.  Pour over the veggies and mush the garlic down into the salad.

Cover and refrigerate for a few hours to let the flavors blend and the veggies soften. Stir at some point.

Goes great with meat or chicken, hamburgers and BBQ, but probably not pancakes.

P.S. I just noticed that when I made this, I added some other spice, see those little yellow seeds in the picture above. I have no idea what I did there. Which just goes to show you can open the spice cupboard and throw in whatever floats your boat. I bet that’s mustard seed.

Sunday Supper

It’s 95 degrees here and humid. I want ice cream for dinner. What we’ll probably have is grilled salmon, new potatoes and string beans. Or maybe a salad so I don’t have to turn on the stove at all. After washing the potatoes, I’ll put them in foil with olive oil, salt and pepper and dill, parsley or chives (or a combination) and roast on the grill until done, +/- 20 minutes. For the last 10 minutes, I’ll move the potatoes to one side of the grill and add a couple salmon slices with dill and lemon.

Brownies for dessert.

What’s on your plate?

I took this quick picture before we devoured this cake so you won’t see any attempt at staging a shot. This is straight kitchen-counter, indoor-lighting, no-frills photography. What you can’t see is Jack sitting at the table with a fork and a glass of milk, waiting for me to “cut the damn cake already”.

I don’t know how long I’ve been making chocolate sauerkraut cake but I know that I had a hard time finding a recipe for it, so it must have been pre-Google. Turns out that putting sauerkraut into a chocolate cake isn’t all that unusual  — I found 69,000 links to “chocolate sauerkraut cake” when I Googled it last night. Who knew?

Thanks to the buttermilk and sauerkraut this cake is moist and flavorful. Be sure to rinse the sauerkraut well. If you chop it fine enough, the sauerkraut disappears in the cake. But if you do a fast, rough chopping, you’ll be able to see the kraut and feel the texture, which will remind you of coconut.  In either case you’ll end up with a deep chocolate flavor.

And you do know that if there’s no buttermilk in the house, you can make your own sour milk by adding lemon juice or vinegar to milk and letting it stand for a bit, right? A tablespoon of vinegar or slightly less of the lemon juice works.

I usually make cupcakes and a small cake from this recipe, just because I swing that way. We eat the small cake right away and I freeze the cupcakes.  It’s easy to pull one cupcake out of the freezer for Jack and I don’t have the temptation of a whole cake sitting on the kitchen shelf. I do that with most cake recipes; even if I bake a Bundt or layer cake, at least half of it gets frozen.

A note about the baking temperature. Over the years I’ve gone back and forth over what temp I bake this at.  I’ve found that 375 degrees works better than 350 degrees for this recipe. I tested it again this time by baking the cupcakes at 350 and the cake at 375. The cupcakes didn’t rise and dome nicely as they should; the top was flat even with the toothpick test said they were done. The cake domed nicely, set well and seemed to come out a little firmer and resulted in a cake I was pleased with. The cupcakes taste fine — the flat top keeps the icing from falling off but they won’t win any prizes for looks.

So if you can’t taste the sauerkraut why use it?  Why do we put zucchini in all kinds of things? I don’t know why it works but it does make a great cake. It also uses up leftover sauerkraut  when you have half a jar sitting in the fridge and no desire for short ribs and kraut, or sausage and kraut, or pork chops and kraut.

Let me know how your cake turns out.

Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake

• 8-oz sauerkraut
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 2 teas baking soda
• 1/2 teas salt
• 1/4 cup cocoa, I use Dutch processed
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature is best
• 1 teas vanilla
• 3/4 cup buttermilk or sour milk
• 3/4 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour your pans (I use Baker’s Joy spray) or line your muffin cups. This cake lends itself to almost any pan size.

Rinse the sauerkraut well and squeeze it dry. Put it in a food processor or blender and chop it fine. I have a small food processor thingy that I use and it comes out great.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa and set aside.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light in color and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; add the vanilla. Mix well.

Alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk/sour milk to the batter. Add the sauerkraut and mix well.

While you’ve been mixing the batter, your water should be brought to a boil. I usually fold the water in by hand. It tends to spatter if you use the mixer, even on low speed. Plus it seems like I can incorporate the water more quickly with a spatula.

Turn the batter into your pan(s) or cupcake tins and bake until a toothpick in the center comes out clean and the cake is nicely risen.

I made 12 cupcakes and a 6 by 9 inch cake. Here’s where my memory fails me. I believe I cooked the cupcakes for about 22 – 25 minutes; but I lost track, so start checking them around 15 – 18 minutes (sooner if you’re baking at 375 degrees). The small cake took about 25 – 30 minutes, but again it was one of those things where I checked it and put it back in the oven for another 3 – 4 minutes a couple of times. I’d start checking it around 20 minutes and go from there.

Cupcakes should be removed from the tin as soon as possible so they don’t steam. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn it out and let it cool completely before icing . If you’re making a sheet cake to take to a potluck, it can stay in the pan and you can just frost the top. In this house, frosting goes on ALL sides, not just the top; what’s the point of cake if there’s no frosting? So I take my cakes out of the pan.

The following frosting is finger-licking good, or use your own standby.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

• 3 oz cream cheese
• 2 – 3 Tbsp milk or half and half
• 2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
• 1 teas vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 2 – 3 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

Place the cream cheese in 2 tablespoons of milk or half and half and soften it in the microwave until you can mix it easily together, a couple short bursts works best. Blend in the melted chocolate, vanilla and salt and mix well. Add the sugar, a cup or so at a time, until the frosting is a consistency that you like. If it gets too thick, you can thin it with some of  the extra milk; a teaspoon at a time works best. The frosting might seem thin, but it thickens as it sets and spreads easily. And it tastes great right off the spoon. Don’t ask me why there are two cupcakes without any frosting in the freezer. Just never you mind.

It grows slowly partly because it takes some time to pick out new colors while I’m knitting. I try not to repeat a yarn within the same row or two and I try to complete the edges with a mostly dark color.

This morning I devised a plan that I hope will help move it along a little faster. I divided all my available yarn by color family with the idea that I would choose enough yarn to do two rows at a time. Since my blanket is 12 blocks wide I need 24 different yarns to complete two rows. I only had nine piles of yarn so I pulled two and sometimes three colors from each pile and stuffed them in a plastic bag. By the time I was finished I had two full bags and a third missing just about six colors.

As I use a color, I’ll throw it back in the basket loose and once I’ve worked my way through the first bag, I’ll finish making up the third bag, so I always have enough colors picked out to work at least four rows.

That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it until something else comes along. It’s all about the flexibility around here.

Oh, and the other E is eleventy-million Ends to darn in. I’ll show you what I’m doing with all those ends later this week.

Sunday Supper

You should have been here for supper. I marinated prawns in olive oil, lemon juice, zest, pepper and Jerk seasoning for about 20 minutes. Then threw them on the grill before serving them on a bed of couscous cooked with onion, parsley and lemon peel. I had fresh grilled asparagus and Jack got a stodgy old salad. (I’m not sharing the first asparagus of the season with someone who only tolerates the taste.)  The whole meal was to die for. It flunked the eating locally idea, unless I can convince you the prawns came from the Missouri River and the lemons off a tree in my back yard? No? Oh well.

And for dessert there was chocolate sauerkraut cake. Yum. There will be a recipe coming for that later this week. Just in case you have a can of sauerkraut sitting in your pantry that you don’t know what to do with.

Finis

Anyhoo, let’s talk about something much more fun.

Like chocolate.

Specifically chocolate cake.

Specifically chocolate cake that’s low-cal (sort of), moist and great tasting.

I don’t know if I’ve said it before but I use the Eating Well website all the time and subscribe to their magazine. They cook the way I mostly like to cook. They use real ingredients and concentrate on making food that’s healthy and still tastes good. Their recipes limit butter and saturated fats, opting for olive or vegetable oil and use ingredients like buttermilk in baked goods to keep them moist and tender. Not everything I’ve made from their recipes works, but I can usually tweak the ingredients to suit our tastes.

I was pleased when I found a recipe for a chocolate cake that looked like something we’d enjoy and I was right. I’ve made it a few times now and it’s become a favorite. It’s quick and easy to make, no sifting of flour a million times, no separating of eggs and whipping whites and all that jazz. Yet you still end up with a cake that is moist with plenty of chocolate flavor and just the right texture and heft.

I’ve made a minor modification to the recipe, which was to substitute espresso powder for hot coffee. You don’t taste the coffee in the cake, but I think it helps intensify the chocolate flavor. I also changed to a chocolate glaze because I didn’t like the icing they used. My glaze increases the calories and fat but I believe it’s worth it.

The calorie count is somewhere in the neighborhood of 225 – 275 calories, depending upon if you use their icing or my glaze. Without the glaze there are 4 grams of fat and only one of those is from saturated fat.

And truthfully, this cake is so moist you don’t need any icing, just a dusting of confectioners’ sugar if you’re feeling just the tiniest bit guilty about eating chocolate cake.

(Of course you know that if you eat your cake standing up over the sink, there are no calories or fat grams at all. I think that’s true of potato chips too.)

Sorry I don’t have a better picture but we were reaching the end of the cake when I remembered to take a photo. By then all the good-looking parts had been eaten.

Got milk?

Here’s the original Died-and-Went-to-Heaven chocolate cake

My version:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose white flour
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup canola oil
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 – 4 teaspoons (rounded) espresso powder
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 12-cup Bundt pan or coat it with nonstick cooking spray. Dust the pan with flour, invert and shake out the excess. (This never works for me. The only way my cakes don’t stick is if I use Baker’s Joy spray.)

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, white sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Add buttermilk, brown sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla; beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes.

Combine boiling water and espresso powder and whisk into batter until completely incorporated. (The batter will be quite thin.)

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes; remove from the pan and let cool completely. Glaze and enjoy.

Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup milk or half and half
6 oz. or 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Put sugar, butter and milk in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Let boil for about a minute then remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips.  When the glaze is smooth, pour it over the cake. This will be thin but it will firm up as it cools.

This recipe makes a LOT of glaze. I had a little fudge lake in the middle of the cake with little puddles of fudge around the outside. So if you’re just not into that much fudge you might want to cut the glaze recipe in half. Silly you.

I haven’t made this cake in anything but a Bundt pan but I don’t see any reason you couldn’t turn it into cupcakes or a layer cake.

Fruitcake biscotti

It appears that I’m not done talking about fruitcake. In this case, it’s fruitcake biscotti, another holiday favorite in our house. This recipe is from an old issue of Eating Well magazine. It’s quick and easy and makes a lot of small biscotti.

Compared to some of the butter laden holiday treats we’ve been eating these are pretty healthy, since they contain no fat beyond what’s in two egg yolks. The original recipe listed these cookies at 36 calories apiece.

A cup of tea and a couple of these in front of the fire would be a nice way to spend a late winter afternoon. They are crunchy and sweet without being overwhelming. Dunk before enjoying and don’t forget to grab your knitting!

Fruitcake Biscotti

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.

• 2 1/4 cups mixed dried fruit, chopped
• 3 Tbsp candied orange or lemon peel or citron, chopped
• 1/4 cup rum
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur unbleached)
• 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs and 1 egg white
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Mixing

Dried fruit with rum (yum)

Combine dried and candied fruit with rum, let sit at least 15 minutes.

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl.

Whisk together eggs, egg white and vanilla extract and add to flour mixture, stirring to incorporate. Stir in fruit and rum until mixture is well incorporated.
The dough will be sticky and you’ll probably want to flour your hands for the next step.

Shaping

On a well-floured surface, divide dough into 3 logs, 1 1/2 inches wide and 14-16 inches long. The logs look very skinny at this point, but they do expand while baking.

Place logs on prepared baking sheet and bake 25-30 minutes or until firm to the touch. Remove logs from oven and let cool slightly (5 – 10 minutes) for easier handling.

Biscotti after first baking

Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees.

Using a serrated knife for best results, cut logs into 1/2 inch diagonal slices. (You have my permission — like you need it — to eat the crumbs.) Stand slices upright on baking sheet and bake for 50 – 60 minutes or until golden.

Cool completely before storing.

Notes

For the first baking, I can fit all three logs on one cookie sheet but once I’ve cut them into slices I find it’s helpful to divide the slices between two sheets for the second round in the oven.

Also, after the second baking, the cookies may still feel slightly soft, but they firm up as they cool. Since you want crunch not bricks, don’t overcook these.

I often soak the fruit in the rum the night before, just because it gives me a jump on the recipe. I use whatever dried fruit I have on hand, which this year was dried cranberries, cherries and pineapple; currants, apricots and a few dates. And if you’re making fruitcake cake, just prepare two extra cups of fruit, throw the rum in and let the mixture sit until the next day.

This recipe is so easy to pull together you don’t even need to get your mixer out. I use my favorite wooden spoon to combine everything. Don’t worry if at first there doesn’t appear to be enough moisture to bring the batter together. Let it sit for a minute or two after adding the fruit/rum mixture and you’ll find there’s plenty of liquid to mix your dough.

I’ve never used nuts in this recipe, although I intended to this year and simply forgot. Chopped almonds would be good I think and I would probably cut back the fruit by half a cup maybe.

I wish I had a better picture for you but the camera is still in the shop and anyway, all that’s left of this year’s batch are a few crumbs. Give this recipe a try if you’re looking for a little different sweet treat for the holidays.

Pecans for fruitcake

I have a husband who likes fruitcake. Now I know fruitcakes are easy targets for ridicule. They’re heavy, rich and full of booze and last forever. While that last feature is often desirable in such things as good times and batteries, not so in most fruitcakes.

But there can be exceptions. Jack has specific ideas about what he wants in a fruitcake: more dried fruit than candied fruit, some nuts but still leave plenty of batter. And go easy on the alcohol.

For years we bought commercial fruitcakes to see if they met his expectations. For a while the closest we came was the apricot pecan cakes from Collins Bakery. Which are delicious and come close to the idea of a fruitcake, but at $36 for less than 2 pounds of cake they were an indulgence. And with only one fruit they seemed to lack the flavor surprise that a fruitcake provides. The search continued.

We tried the ones from Gethsemeni Farms which were dark, heavy and very rich. And so full of bourbon that we got lightheaded just unwrapping it. Since he doesn’t like the overwhelming taste of liquor in his desserts, these were given a pass after one try. I think we also ordered their bourbon fudge, don’t ask me why.  It’s the only time I remember throwing out fudge.

There were others, equally as expensive and equally full of brandy, bourbon or rum. Then there were those cheap little fruitcakes you see in the grocery store with tons of toxic neon red and green candied fruit and a nut or two. When he started bringing those home, I decided it was time to try my hand at baking fruitcake.

After much searching I found an old recipe that looked inviting in King Arthur Flour’s 200th anniversary cookbook. What attracted me first was that it’s a light fruitcake, both in the sense that it’s not heavily seasoned and the batter is pale yellow. But it’s not light in weight: this year’s batch weighs 5 pounds.

I’ve made this fruitcake for at least 5 years now and each year I’ve modified it. It’s still not where I want it, but it’s getting better.

Lots of dried and candied fruit

One of my modifications is to alternate soaking the fruitcake with rum and apple juice. For the first week I use all rum, then switch to apple juice for the next week and then rum during week three. This is purely a personal taste preference. If you like heavily rum-soaked fruitcake, use all rum and damn the torpedoes.

The cake really should be baked in early November to allow enough time to season for about 6 weeks before eating. I never remember to do that — partly because I never start thinking about the holidays that early. This year’s batch just got baked about 10 days ago and with some intensive soaking should still be fruitcake within about a month. It does get better with age, so if you can remember to make it in early November and give it more time to sit, you’ll be rewarded with a sweet, lightly spiced fruitcake that just might change your mind about this classic.

Light Fruitcake

This is a big recipe and makes a goodly amount of fruitcake. About 5 pounds worth actually. I’ve found it helps to combine the wet with the dry ingredients in two batches and do the final mixing in one bowl once he batter is mostly moistened. Otherwise you’ll need the muscles of a stevedore to mix the batter.

Adapted from The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook

• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (King Arthur preferred, natch)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 to 4 cups or 1 1/2 pounds of pecan halves
• Up to 5 cups (2 1/2 pounds) of dried and candied fruit. I generally use a combination of crasins, chopped apricots, dried cherries, dates, golden raisins, candied orange and lemon peel, citron (if I have it) and dried or candied pineapple
• 2 sticks butter (unsalted), softened
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons rum

More rum for maturing process

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, spices and salt. After mixing, divide the dry ingredients into two large bowls. Then add half the nuts and fruit to each bowl. You don’t need to be exact because it will eventually all get combined again anyway.

I also had some orange peel and powdered lemon peel from Penzey’s Spices in my refrigerator so I threw in a little of that this year. I wonder if I’ll be able to taste it.

I usually go a little light on the nuts so the proportion of batter to ingredients leans a little more to the cake side. But I screwed up this year and added more pecans than normal so we’ll see if we like it as well this way.

Using your electric mixer, cream the butter until it’s light. Add the sugar, about a cupful at a time, beating until the mixture is light and lemon colored. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until the batter is fluffy. Blend in the rum.

Now spoon about half of the wet into each of the fruit and nut combinations. Stir each bowl until roughly combined then pour one bowl into the other to finish mixing. Believe me it’s easier to work with half the batter to start with.

Grease and flour your selected pans well. I use 3 different size pans: 3 x 5 or 4 x 7 for gifts, and 5 X 9 for us. Fill your selected pans about two-thirds full and bake for about 2 to 2.5 hours or until golden.

Maturing the cake

As soon as the cakes come out of the oven, pour more rum over the top. How much rum? Maybe a tablespoon on the small cakes and 2 – 3 tablespoons on the bigger cakes. You be the judge. Once it has soaked in, remove the cakes from their pans and let cool.

Be careful not to over bake your fruitcake as I think I may have done this year. The edges can always be trimmed but why waste any of that fruity goodness?

Maturing the fruitcake

Once the cakes are completely cool, wrap in plastic and then aluminum foil. Store in a cool place. Every few days sprinkle with rum or apple juice.

While the recipe called for “sprinkling” the cake with rum, I’m more of a pour-it-on kind of girl. This year I’m trying something new: I’ve been poking holes in the cake with a metal skewer and using the fine tip on my baster to inject liquid into the middle of the cake.  I’ll let you know how that works. So far it seems to be speeding up the process of maturing the cake.

When you can’t stand waiting any longer, slice and enjoy.

There. That’s how I make fruitcake that we actually enjoy. The matured cake tastes of lightly spiced sweet rum and fruit. The rum flavor is there, but it doesn’t knock you out. This cake keeps forever in the refrigerator and is excellent with a glass of milk or a cup of hot tea. I’m looking forward to the first slice in another couple of weeks.

ETA: I just weighed the cakes and this recipe actually makes seven pounds of fruitcake. It’s a good thing some of them are being given as presents. Also, for you fruitcake fans that haven’t yet found the perfect one, there’s another (and smaller) recipe that I’m going to try in the 2008 issue of Holiday Baking from Cook’s Illustrated (on sale now) called White Fruitcake. It doesn’t call for any alcohol, doesn’t have to mature and it’s steamed rather than baked, all of which sound intriguing. It relies heavily on candied cherries (bleah) so I’d replace those in my version.

Also, the idea of injecting the rum and/or apple juice appears to be working. The cakes are maturing much faster this year than they have in previous years, when I’ve just poured the liquid on the cakes. I think they may be ready to eat by next week.

Anyway tomorrow I’ll have just the turkey and gravy to fix, along with some peas and onions (and maybe stuffing). And the whipped cream for the pumpkin pie. One day a year I go for the real stuff.

I’m going to dry brine the turkey tonight which sounds so much less messy than a wet brine. I’ve done wet brining before and it does turn out a great turkey, but my memory is of a lot of work and I’m all about taking it easy this year.

A dry brine sounds so much more exotic than it really is: rub the turkey inside and out with plenty of kosher salt seasoned with herbs and let it sit overnight. Tomorrow, stuff the bird with aromatic vegetables and throw it in a hot oven. No rinsing off the salt and since we never eat the skin anyway, I’m not overly concerned about a salt overdose.  Anyhoo, it’s worth a try. The directions were in last Sunday’s Kansas City Star.

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At the risk of being a downer, I found this to be interesting as I’m preparing for a day when most of us will have more to eat than we need. What does it say about us that the number of overweight people is higher than the number of undernourished?

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I’m writing a post on fruitcake but apparently it takes as long to write the post as it takes to make the fruitcake. And somehow I’m thinking there aren’t a lot of you waiting with intense anticipation for a fruitcake recipe. No matter, there must be a few other nuts out there who think fruitcake can be good if it owes its flavor to dried fruit more than candied fruit and if it’s not overly soaked in brandy or bourbon. I should have the post ready this weekend.

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I also have another finished object to show off. It’s something I came up with on my own and while it’s awesomely simple, I’m pleased with how it turned out. It needs tidying up, blocking and photographing so maybe in a day or two.

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I went to Knitting in the Neighborhood last night, also known as If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Knitters Night. During the Obama campaign we always had meetings on Tuesday evening so I’ve been absent since September. It was good to be back even though the tables were a little emptier than usual due to the holidays. I missed my peeps.

No-knead bread

to California where my sister Geri made her first loaf. I admit I’m a little jealous because a) her loaf looks like it rose better than mine (and there were no tales of dough sticking to anything) and b) her kitchen is sunny enough that she can take good pictures in November without additional lighting.

But there was one catastrophe: not liking the 450 degree oven, the button on her glass lid melted. Oops.

Too hot to handle

Recipe here.

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I’ve been ankle deep in old financial statements, business records, tax receipts, canceled checks and account statements for most of the day as we work on cleaning out the storage locker. My hands are dried out and rough from sorting through what needs to stay and what can be shredded. I’m up to 5 boxes of shredables so far and I’m still not done. We also took a load of miscellaneous treasures to the thrift store so someone else could store them for a while. We may not be able to completely get rid of the locker due to some burgeoning resistance from my helper but we should at least be able to downsize.

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Finally! I did something about the banner, replacing this summer’s rose with a stylized (meaning out-of- focus) shot of a shrub on my nephew’s farm. Don’t know what the shrub is but it was full of these berries. I feel so much better now that I’m in tune with the season.

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Now that I’ve changed the banner (and updated some links too) my next maintenance chore is to figure out why my pictures don’t center even though I tell them to center, the code says they’re centered, the preview mode says they’re centered, but they insist upon sliding to the left when the post goes live. Who says technology is our friend?