Tis the Season!

I do  love Christmas. I love that families can come together to celebrate on the day, or they can be apart and drop in over the weeks surrounding the actual day, or they can just phone up on the day. Most of my immediate family is scattered now. My sister Fronkiii of “The road to Serendipity” blog fame lives over 4000km away in Tasmania to the East, my brother Jim lives in the next town to my west, Denmark, and I live in Albany Western Australia. We used to have massive Christmases back when I was young. Whole families and their hangers on would all congregate at either one of my Aunts Alice or Margarets houses or my Grandparents places and eat, drink and be very merry. It was a lot of fun and a time to catch up on long lost rellies and welcome the newborns. Gifts would be exchanged and many plates of food eaten.

What I remember most fondly is the making of the Christmas cakes. Mum used an old recipe that her father and brother had gotten from Arnotts cake factory when they worked there back in the late 40s and 50s and had cut down to a useable size. As children we used to love helping peel the almonds and mix the fruit in and the prize of licking the spoon or bowl was most fought for! Mum passed away a couple of years ago now and we all surely miss her baking. She used to keep us all well supplied with fruit mince pies and fruit cakes and chocolate brandy truffles and savoury dishes. It’s my turn to keep up this tradition and I have offered to make my brother and daughters Christmas cakes this year. Like me, they will one day want to make their own and I look forward to helping them find their own special recipe. The recipe that follows is one I’ve used over the past 2-3 years and it is extremely versatile by way of being able to be eaten as a pudding as well as a cake with custard, cream or ice cream or all three! I’ve made it gluten free and you cannot tell the difference 😀

Rich Christmas fruit cake with Muscat.

Ingredients.

200g raisins

200g sultanas

180g dried apricots, diced

150g dried cranberries (Craisins)

100g pitted prunes, chopped

100g glace cherries

100g mixed peel

250ml liqueur muscat

5 eggs

1/4 cup treacle

1/4 cup ginger marmalade

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond essence

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 oranges

300g Gluten Free plain flour

3tsp gluten free baking powder

2 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp fine salt

250g unsalted butter

300g dark brown sugar

125ml brandy

One of the first things I do is to combine all the fruits and the Muscat into a glass bowl, mix well and cover with cling film. Then they are refrigerated for 2 days or until the fruit has absorbed all of the alcohol and is nice and plump.

Assemble all the rest of the cake ingredients. Grease and line a 24cm cake pan, either round or square with baking paper. Preheat your oven to 140 Celsius.

 

Combine eggs, treacle, marmalade, vanilla, almond essence, orange zest and juice in a large bowl and whisk until smooth.

 

Sift flour, baking powder and mixed spice and salt into a large bowl.

Put butter and dark brown sugar in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat for a good 5 minutes or until light and creamy.

 

Add egg mixture to butter mixture and beat until smooth.

Fold in flour mixture and then stir in fruit mixture.

Spoon batter into tin, put tin on wire rack set on an oven tray and bake rotating every hour, for 3 hours or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Pierce the top of the cooked cake several times with skewer then sprinkle with brandy.

Set aside to cool completely in the tin. When cold, remove cake from tin and wrap tightly in cling film. Put in fridge to mature for 1 week.

This cake keeps really well due to its liberal amount of alcohol. I tend to keep mine in the fridge.

This is a wonderful cake and I hope you all have as much joy as I do in making and eating it.

Get your laughing gear around this!

It has finally become the cold winter I’ve been longing for. All those red sky sunrises (red sky in the morning-shepherds warning) have come to fruition and given us cold wet days as well. I know they’re not as cold as Tasmania or other cold areas of the world but they are nice and chilly. I figure, what with all the shivering I’m doing, extra calories are being used up just to keep this bulk of mine in warmer pastures so what better for a calorie burning season than a rich and luscious Baked Lemon Cheesecake? It’s baked, thus it fits into winter with all the other baked goodies we eat 😀

Gluten Free Baked Lemon Cheesecake (with a twist)

Ingredients

Here’s my twist, I used a whole jar (1 cup, 250mls)of my homemade Lemon Curd. Use the juice and rind of one lemon instead if preferred.

1 1/4 cups of crushed biscuits. I used a gluten free mix of gingernuts and macadamia nut shorbread.

1 tablespoon of gluten free flour. I tend to choose Orgran brand but any would do.

2 x large eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup of caster sugar

70gm melted butter

750gms of Cream cheese, softened

Recipe

First assemble all your ingredients.

Then process and combine the biscuit crumbs with the melted butter and press into base of prepared tin.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar using an electric mixer until smooth. Add Eggs one at a time and beat till smooth. Fold in gently the lemon curd and tablespoon of gluten free flour.

Poor mixture onto prepared base and bake at 150 degrees celcius for 45 minutes or until slightly wobbly in the centre. Allow to cool in oven with door ajar, then chill.

I serve this with a dollop of thick cream and it is divine!

Don’t be concerned if the top cracks on cooling. It wont affect the flavour at all and you can cover any cracks with a good dollop of cream anyway 😀

Just the thing for a cold winters day.

Enjoy!