Today’s Please Pass the Fruitcake post is the recipe that originally inspired this series: fruitcake. I’ve never made a fruitcake before, but I do enjoy eating it (seriously, why the bad rap?).

Let me tell you this, having now made a fruitcake. If someone gives you one as a gift, you need to appreciate it as such. Making a fruitcake is no small undertaking and requires many ingredients and much patience. So please don’t huck it out the window or use it as a paperweight – savor it, and shower the giver of the cake with many kisses.

Sarah found me an awesome-sounding fruitcake recipe so I set to work. I found the ingredients I needed at WinCo. Would you believe they had most of the candied fruit varieties I needed in bulk? Yes, it’s true!

Dump all of the fruit in a bowl with 1/2 cup orange juice and 1/2 cup brandy. Here’s another trend I’ve noticed about all these old Christmas recipes. They all call for brandy. The figgy pudding, the brandy butter on mince pies, the mulled wine, and the glaze for the Christmas goose – all brandy. No wonder everyone was so “merry and bright” back then!

OK confession time. This smelled soooo good, I wondered what one of these fruit bits would taste by itself. Yes, I did it. I tried one of the green cherries. It was…TERRIBLE. Don’t do this people. You’ll swear you’re eating something you shouldn’t be. I had to step out for a bit of fresh air because I was feeling sickish afterwards.

From here you’re going to want to let the dried fruit soak in all the orange-brandy-ness for several hours. Oh, and get used to the notion of doing a step and then waiting several hours/days until the next step. Kind of reminds me of my sugar plums (they are currently on day 11, I think).

Now you can prepare your loaf pans. This recipe is enough for two large loaves. You’ll want to butter the sides well, cover the bottom with parchment, and yes, butter again.

Now you can begin to work on your batter, which consists of 3 1/2 cups of flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and mace. Sift (or in my case, just stir ‘cuz you don’t own a sifter), then add the baking powder and sift/stir again.

Now this is the part you are going to start to mix 1 cup of butter in a mixer. I’m gonna warn you now – get a heavy duty stand mixer. I’m not saying this to try to sell you something you don’t need – I’m just saying – this batter is a beastly monster. If you attempt to stir it by hand, you’ll break your stir stick (and/or possibly your arm). If you don’t have a heavy duty mixer, borrow one. As it is, my Kitchenaid was probably saying, “and what the booger is THIS, Angela?” as it was working overdrive to slog through it all.

OK. You’ve been warned what’s about to happen.

Moving along.

Add two cups of brown sugar to the butter.

Beat eggs slightly then add them to the mixture. And then slowly work in your flour mixture. Once that’s thoroughly mixed, slowly pour in the molasses.

Now comes the fun part. Mix in the fruit. This pretty much filled my mixing bowl up to the brim. I’m pleased to say that my Kitchenaid pulled through. (Though it didn’t speak to me for at least a few days after this incident.)

Next you’re going to beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

Fold into the batter and then pour into the two loaf pans.

Then you’re going to cover these and let them sit in a cool place overnight. I opted for a place in my garage.

The next day you’re going to bake these. And the baking process? Get this – FOUR HOURS at 250°. Who cooks anything at 250°? Yeah.

Oh, an hour and a half into it, you’re going to put each of these into a brown paper bag and finish cooking. If this recipe isn’t high maintenance, I don’t know what is.

Now, I suppose you could slice it up and eat it right now, but typically, that’s not what happens. Oh no.

You need to take it out of the pan, wrap it in parchment, AND foil, AND put it in a tin of some sort, and poke holes in the lid of the tin so it can breathe, and THEN give it somewhere cool to chill and THEN every 3-4 days before Christmas you drizzle a little brandy on top of it.

Yikes.

I hope you understand now why you should be forever in your Aunt Cecilia’s debt when she gives you a homemade fruitcake for your Christmas present. She has given you a labor of love. (And some rather spendy ingredients, I might add.)

Here’s my fruitcake, about a week and a half after I started the process. I decided to take a tiny taste today, but I fully intend on threatening blessing my family with it at our Christmas Eve party this year. Just keep boozing it up, and it should be good, I guess.

That’s what the inside of my fruitcake looked like, once I sliced into it. Observe the Christmas colors.

And there you go! A slice of Christmas Past (sometimes quite literally), ready to be enjoyed.

I asked my daughter to capture the moment of my first bite of my fruitcake. I should remind you, she’s three, so this is pretty fantastic photography.

Delicious!

I loved it. I should tell you that a LITTLE goes a long way when it comes to this cake. I wouldn’t recommend serving a huge ol’ slab of it. I would even consider serving half slices or cubes. It tasted like I was eating a cake made out of fruit snacks and butter. I gave my son a nibble and a minute later we had to fish out the dental picks. (He’s fussy about these sorts of things.)

So there you have it my friends. Fruitcake.

Tomorrow I will conclude this series with the strangest recipe I’ve ever featured on this blog. Those of you that chill with me on Facebook might remember a couple of weeks ago I said I was laughing so hard I was crying about an idea I had for this series. Yes, my friends. My idea worked beautifully. And tomorrow I will share that masterpiece with you. Don’t miss it. 

For past recipes in this series, just browse my Christmas category.

For the complete instructions on today’s recipe, visit About.com.

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For today’s Christmas 12-day series post, we’re doing some more crafting! Then Thursday and Friday I’ll be sharing a couple recipes you won’t want to miss (hint: one *might* be fruitcake).

Sarah was already planning on doing on doing some ornament crafts, so this worked out very nice for this series!

Decoupage ornaments

Decoupage, for those of you that don’t know, is a process of decorating objects with cut papers and glue. The finished effect is a varnished, layered look. I think that decoupage can have a cool, vintage feel. I’ve never personally done it, but Sarah was brave enough to give it a try! Here are Sarah’s photos and notes…

Here is what you’ll need:

• Elmer’s glue
• Water
• Plain glass ball ornaments (find these at craft stores)
• Wrapping paper*
• Acrylic Spray

This is the paper going onto the ornament, it is best to start in the middle and then overlap the pieces to cover the entire ornament.

Here is an completed ornament, covered with all of the paper and decoupage solution.

Place on rack to dry, move a few times to ensure that the paper doesn’t attach to the rack. I also put some wax paper underneath to make clean-up easier.

Spray with acrylic spray (I chose glossy). I decided to put them on display in this glass container. We sprayed out in the garage/outside as the fumes are pretty strong. It is also a good idea to set up a bit of an area for them to dry. A couple of mine fell and broke as I wasn’t careful of where I was putting them.

Last year Halle made some of these with me, so I think that kids 4 + if interested could assist in the decoupage part, but leave the nasty spray to an adult.

On the Ball

I got this idea out of Parents Magazine, the December 2011 issue.

Here is what you’ll need:

• Clear plastic ornaments (oops, I got glass!)
• Beads
• Glue
• Colored cord

The directions are simple: you’re going to partially fill a clear ornament with beads and glue colored cord around the top.

I purchased a pack of glass ornaments, a couple packs of colored beads and some silver and blue twine to create these ornaments.

Next, fill the ornament with tiny beads of your choice.

I found that these tiny beads were flying everywhere, so I concocted a tube for the beads to slide down, which made it a bit easier.

Lastly, I added the twine. It wasn’t attached as nicely as I would have liked it to be. My husband said that I probably wasn’t using the right glue. I used a glue that would turn clear, but he suggested a silicone based glue.

Here is my completed ornament, hanging on the tree. My daughter is really excited to try making one of these soon!

Little Spruce

I got this idea from the same Parents Magazine December 2011 issue

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Pinecones
• Green paint
• Pom poms
• Decoration for the top
• Clay for the trunk (though I omitted this)
• Glitter (optional, but fun!)

I may have gone a little overboard on my supplies, it really only called for pine cones, green paint, pom-poms, a decoration on top, and some clay for the bottom of the tree (I opted to not include the clay on the bottom of the tree). I did get quite a bit of glitter as my daughter really enjoys using glitter and I know we can use it on another project certainly.

Here’s my pinecone, painted green. I opted for the cinnamon pinecones sold at the store, so mine have a nice scent to them. This process took a lot longer than I thought it would, a pinecone has lots of layers to it. Originally I was planning to have my daughter do the painting, but I felt like she might get bored and I decided to have her help with the decorating instead.

Here’s my completed pinecone with glitter, pom-poms, beads, and twine that my husband so handily affixed for me.

Thanks, Sarah, for taking the time to share these cute ornament ideas!

In case you missed the other features from this series:

• Roasted Chestnuts
• Yule Log
• Sugar Plums
• Figgy Pudding
• Mince Pies
• Egg Nog
• Wassail & Mulled Wine
• Roasted Game Hens with Chestnut Stuffing
• Vintage Snow Globes (Craft)

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For the past week, I’ve been revisiting traditional Christmas recipes and traditions. Today I have something slightly different in mind. Yes, it’s a Christmas craft!

I was watching this Rachael Ray segment last week where this guest she had on made snow globes (did anyone see this?). She made it sound pretty easy, so I decided to give it a whirl. I should mention here that I think I have a touch of an artsy/creative side, but I’m by no means a hard-core crafter. A visit to the craft store is maybe a once or twice yearly visit for me.

Here’s what you need:

• Small jars (such as canning jars, or old food jars)
• Glycerin (I found this at Michael’s for $2.99 near where they sell cake stuff)
• Glitter
• Christmas miniatures or ornaments (after visiting SEVERAL stores, I found adorable Victorian-style Christmas miniatures at Joann’s for 70% off!)
• Strong glue – I used gorilla glue
• Newspapers or other material to protect your counters

In all sincerity, the trickiest part of this whole thing for me was assembling everything I’d need. I ended up buying some small canning jars at WinCo for this craft. But I found a few others in my fridge, too (their food contents were old and almost done with anyways). I was able to remove the sticky labels with hot water and an S.O.S. pad.As mentioned above, I found these adorable miniatures at my Joann’s store. They were in a section where they had Christmas houses – I believe in art supplies? They were sold individually and were 70% off. That made the small figures about $1.49 each! The trees were a mere $0.41 each.
Next I decided which figure to place in which jar. This is where I could’ve planned a wee bit better. Some of my figures were too tall! Fortunately most of them were able to fit into one jar or the other. I noticed though that my trees were flaking a bit, so I opted to not use them in the snow globes. (I didn’t want them “shedding” in the water!)
At this point, my little daughter was cracking me up. She was narrating for many of the figurines, exclaiming, “help! help! I’m trapped!” Never a dull moment.
Now on the Rachael Ray show, her guest glued the figures to the bottom of each jar – right on the glass. I opted to glue the figures on the lids for two reasons: 1) it would be easier to get just the right position and 2) that way when you flipped it upside down, it would better resemble a globe.
For each figure, I used a good amount of the gorilla glue, and held it tightly in place for 30 seconds.
Then I let the glue dry for a good hour before completing the craft.
Once the glue was dry, I added some glitter, water (leaving only a small gap), and a few drops of glycerin. The glycerin allows the glitter to slowly move around in the water, giving the allusion of gently falling snow.
Add a little more gorilla/super glue to the inside of the lid before screwing it on.
Viola! That’s it! Simple, really!
Since I had some leftover miniatures and trees, I decided to make a table centerpiece. I simply arranged the snow globes and the leftovers on an old mirror I had. I accented with a few tealights.
I just love the way this turned out!
Now of course, these would make lovely handmade gifts…you could easily add a Christmas sticker or write on the bottoms of the lids in permanent marker.
But I’m going to be honest. I don’t know if I can part with any of them!
Here they are on my table…
They are also adorable in a window sill…
What do you think??

In case you missed the other features from this series:

• Roasted Chestnuts
• Yule Log
• Sugar Plums
• Figgy Pudding
• Mince Pies
• Egg Nog
• Wassail & Mulled Wine
• Roasted Game Hens with Chestnut Stuffing

Tomorrow I have one more vintage-inspired craft to share, and then two very…er…interesting? recipes on Thursday and Friday to conclude this series. I hope you’ve been enjoying it as much as I have!

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