Christmas Baking

Christmas means fellowship, feasting, giving and receiving,

a time of good cheer, home. ~ W.J. Ronald Tucker 

We have been enjoying some Christmas baking of late.  The Christmas Cake commenced with some delicious dried fruit left to soak in some Sherry.

We then decided to make some lovely home made Brown Sugar Spritz Cookies from my Mum's old favourite Christmas recipe.  Mum used to pipe them out into lovely shapes each Christmas and they were all devoured way too quickly.  Ess and I decided to make some Christmasy star shapes for her teachers.

Surprisingly enough, all of them did make it from the resting tray into the packages we designed for them.

Ess decided she would use her lovely little flower girl basket to carry them around in at Kindy as she delivered them to the teachers. She did look so very sweet carrying out this task (comments proud Mum).

After the cookies were baked it was time for the Christmas Cake to take over the oven.  They take so long to bake don't they.  Three hours of a very warm kitchen heated by the oven which can no longer be used for other cooking.  Just as well I had tea prepared to be cooked on the stove top as it was still baking as we dined.  Poor Generous Gentleman, he came home to a house full of wonderful aromas only to be told he had to wait till Christmas (or at least later) until we cut the cake after it had cooked and cooled.  He did have a bikky though. 

The recipe I use is Possibly the World's Best Christmas Cake ever.  I have used it every Christmas since I found it.  You simply start by soaking the fruit in sherry overnight, add to that a creamed mix of butter, brown sugar, vanilla and eggs.  Once that is mixed well we add the piece de resistance - melted chocolate (dark and fairtrade of course) combined with apricot nectar and apricot jam.  Here Ess is pouring in the chocolate and just waiting for the bowl to be ready to lick. Yes we all had a turn at licking this bowl.  The mix was poured into a cake tin lined with lots of baking paper and wrapped in brown paper to prevent burning and cooked for almost three hours.

Here is it! with most left to be revealed.  Of course the "proof will be in the pudding".