The inevitable

It had to happen. I had to make Christmas cake at some point. 

Fruit cake can be a truly wonderful experience. If the fruit mix is just right and not too overbearing, and there's enough room left in the batter for the cake to rise really well, rather than being weighed down by dense fruit, a fruit cake can be wholesome and comforting, and a real treat. Unfortunately, too many fruit cakes are anything but enjoyable.

For me, the thought of Christmas cake tends to conjure up visions of sultana-laden fruit mixes, containing barely discernible bits of peel and glace cherries, soaked in vast quantities of cheap sherry and plonked into a heavy, uninspiring cake batter. In my opinion, the true nightmare of Christmas involves having to graciously accept the large chunks invariably offered wherever you go, and, after struggling to swallow the horrendous stuff, the requirement that you plaster on a bright smile, convincingly tell the cook that it was wonderful and that yes, you'd love another piece. If this is too much to bear, for goodness sakes, do not go anywhere near any form of retirement community during December! 

I only ever enjoyed the lighter variety of fruit cake, and not much then. In recent years I've experimented with a few mixes, both regular and gluten free, and in the last couple of years I've been fairly successful. This year's effort is a little different - little glace fruit cakes. Another adventure into Woman's Weekly cooking. (Hey, if it works...)

These little morsels are quite sweet, so I'm told. I couldn't actually try since I made them with regular wheat flour, but I may try again with spelt. I think the fact that a dozen disappeared in about two days speaks for itself. What I can tell you is that they smell divine and look pretty  and were easy to make, which is the real cherry on top.

Two things - the health food shop wasn't open when I shopped, so I didn't get the natural looking strips of pineapple. I settled for the chunky stuff from the supermarket and nobody noticed. Second, I used only red glace cherries. Nothing untoward happened because of that either. 

Glace fruit cakes

Woman's Weekly, Christmas, p 32

Ingredients:

3/4 cup slivered almonds

90g butter, softened

2 tsp finely grated lemon rind

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 cup self raising flour

1/3 cup milk

4 slices glace pineapple chopped coarsely

1/3 cup red glace cherries, halved

1/3 cup green  glace cherries, halved

1/3 cup coarsely chopped glace ginger

1/2 cup slivered almonds, extra

Preheat oven to 170ºC/150ºC fan forced. Grease 12 hole muffin pan, line bases with baking paper. (I cut the bottoms out of muffin papers rather than mess about outlining, etc)

Sprinkle nuts into pan holes

Beat butter, rind and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Transfer mixture to medium bowl; stir in sifted flours, milk, fruit and extra nuts. Spread mixture into pan holes. Bake for about 25 minutes.

Now the recipe also offers a ginger syrup which you can pour over the cakes while they're still in the tin. I didn't do this, but here's how:

Take 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup caster sugar and a 2cm piece of fresh ginger, grated. Stir ingredients in small saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves; bring to the boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered without stirring, about 5 minutes or until syrup thickens slightly. Serve hot or cold.