Christmas Cake: Day 2

I made two Christmas Cakes!  They are soaking up whiskey and waiting for Christmas and, hopefully, not growing any pathogens. I'll post an updated picture when it comes time to pour a little more bourbon on them this weekend.  Every Sunday between now and Christmas they get a little drink!

Christmas Cake
Adapted from Felicity Cloake's Recipe

Takes 1 hour + 2 hours baking + weeks of waiting
Makes 1 cake

1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon butter, very soft or melted
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon muscovado or dark brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice (a suggestion: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon clove + 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; you can also use pumpkin pie spice if you have it)
1/4 cup ground almonds
zest of one lemon (an unwaxed one if possible)
1/4 cup blanched almonds
Boozy Fruits

Preheat oven to 280 degrees fahrenheit.

With two layers of parchment, line and butter an 8 inch cake tin, or what I like to use is a 1 1/2 quart Corning bakeware or similar casserole type dishes. Trim the excess parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking in each until fully incorporated. This will take some time, but when you are done, your batter will look very smooth and rich. Add boozy fruits and their juices, lemon zest and almonds, and stir until just combined.

In another bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, mixed spice, ground almonds and a pinch of salt. 

Fold flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined.

Pour into prepared cake tin and create a hollow with your spatula. This trick prevents a dome from forming on your cake!

Bake for one hour.  Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 30 more minutes. Check to see if it's done (an inserted fork comes out clean). If it's not, cover again, and bake in 10 minute intervals until cooked. Each cake took approximately an extra 40 minutes for a total baking time of 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Let cool completely. When cool, poke holes almost all the way through the cake.  Brush with whiskey.  Wrap in foil and keep in an airtight container. Brush with whiskey, around once a week until Christmas!

Stir it Up!: Christmas Cake, day 1

This is the second year that I am making a Christmas Cake.  Known to some as fruit cake, this is not at all one of those bizarrely dry cakes with bits of bright red and green candied something in them. This is a very moist, rich, boozy cake with lots of real fruit.  Just a tiny slice of cake is so good with a cup of tea around 4 pm, when it is starting to get dark, and you just aren't ready to have it be nighttime already. I love real fruitcake for not being too sweet, and being actually fruity, not in a bright, summery way, but in a serious, winter way. It's a very companionable cake, for the quiet, contemplative time of year.

It's also a party cake, though, because it really is full of booze!  If you're going to make it, use something that you like to drink. The alcohol helps preserve the cake and gives it flavor. 

I spent one fall in London (the first year of this blog), and the woman I was living with started making mincemeat for pies in November. I was very impressed, and couldn't imagine planning to cook that far ahead. Last year, I really wanted to make a christmas cake, but, poor planner that I am, I started the week before and I fed it a little whiskey every day leading up to its unveiling on Christmas Day. It was delicious.

This year, I am starting on "Stir Up Sunday".  Not at all sure that this is a real thing in Britain, but I like the idea of it a whole lot better than Black Friday which is a very real thing here in the US.  Stir Up Sunday apparently has its roots in the Church of England, which marks the last Sunday before Advent as a day to: 

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I guess Stir Up Sunday hasn't been an entirely religious event for awhile, because in 1849, an observer marked little boys changing these words to:

Stir up, we beseech thee, 

The pudding in the pot: 

And when we get home, 

We'll eat it all hot. 

Phiz (Hablot K. Brown), "Paul Goes Home for the Holidays"
from Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son (1848–9)
image from Victorian Web.

In addition to its religious meanings, Stir Up Sunday now seems to be a day to make mincemeat for Christmas pies, to start Christmas puddings, and to start a Christmas Cake. We may not have a Christmas tree, but we have a little Christmas Cake starting in our house!  My stirring up will be to write some blog posts between now and the end of the year!  I'll be blogging the progress of the Christmas Cake, and maybe you want to start one too. First steps: the fruit and the bourbon.

Christmas Cake--Step 1: Boozy fruit

adapted from Felicity Cloake's recipe

1 cup dried currants
1 cup sultanas (golden raisins, preferably the big ones)
1/2 cup (about 6) dried smyrna figs, chopped
1/2 cup dried plump cherries (not the super shriveled ones)
1/2 cup candied orange peel or mixed peel, chopped
1 Tablespoon candied ginger, chopped fine
1/2 cup whiskey or bourbon 
a splash, Grand Marnier, if you have it around

Stir it up! Let sit for one day, until you are ready to bake the cake.

Thanksgiving Update (with Recipes!)

Dear Readers,

I'm sorry.  I am a bad blogger.  Your memories of Thanksgiving are packed away, and I am about to tell you how my meal went.  Bear with me.  There will be so much holiday baking in the next few weeks, all will be forgiven.  That is my hope.

First, what went wrong.  I tried to make a seitan turkey.  I read so many blogs, and thought I would do bee-yew-ti-full-y, but no, I was left with a dense rubbery mass of wheat meat.

The before:

And the during.

I'll leave the after to your imagination.  I don't know what wrong!  I kneaded, I made dashi, I simmered.  Oh well.  I will not be deterred, and I will make delicious seitan one day!

For the almost perfect, I present a gluten-free, vegan pumpkin coconut pie with a pecan crust.  It's actually quite hard to find a recipe that is both gluten-free and vegan.  At our thanksgiving, we had someone with a gluten allergy and someone who is allergic to both dairy and eggs.  I knew it was going to be tough, but I felt sure that I could make a pie that was vegan and gluten-free and delicious.  And it was!  Too bad the filling never quite set.  Rather than messing with various starch flours to make a pastry crust, I made a delicious nut crust.  The filling was classic Libby's with some vegan experimenting.

Recipe at the end of the post.

Now for what went right...This fig crostata.

It was conventional baking perfection!  Buttery crust, rich filling, and the consistency was perfect.  I've never made a lattice crust before, and I was a little nervous, but it comes out so prettily that I've nearly forgotten the tense moments of broken pastry!  I've had my eye on this recipe since last year's Gourmet Thanksgiving issue.  And I might make it again for Christmas, it has a dark, fruity, filling like mincemeat.  I did need to bake it longer than the 30 minutes in the recipe.  More like 45 minutes for the crust to get golden and the filling to set.

It was a wonderful meal with good friends and good food!

Here's the recipe for the pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Coconut Custard Pie

Makes 12 servings

Takes 2 hours

2 cups crushed pecans
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. vegan margarine (or almond oil) 
3/4 cup brown sugar 
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 
4 Tbsp. cornstarch, sifted
15 oz. Pumpkin Puree (Not pie filling) 
1 can (15 oz.) light coconut milk


Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit. 

If you are using margarine, soften by placing it in your pie pan and heating it in the oven while it comes to temperature.  Remove before it gets too hot.

Toss the nuts with the brown sugar and then thoroughly mix with margarine in the pan.  Use your fingers to press the nuts into a firm and even layer all around the bottom and sides of pan.  Bake for 25 minutes.  (Keep an eye on it because the pecans will burn if your oven is too hot of you leave it in for too long!).

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan over medium heat, add all filling ingredients.  Stir until combined.  When it begins to steam, turn heat down to low, and stir constantly until the mixture begins to thicken (Watch out!  The pumpkin will bubble and can burn you and make a mess of your kitchen if you leave it be!).

At this point, I am not sure how long you should stir for, or if you should add more corn starch.  I felt my filling had thickened, and poured it into the cooled pie crust.  But!  It never fully set.

We ate it cold and it was so delicious!  Like yummy pumpkin pudding with a pecan praline crumble. 

If you try this pie, please let me know how it goes!