just in time to be a tax deduction or what happens when your birthday is december 31st

the MITM was going to be home three days ago, but the nature of business made that impossible, so Miss K and i are going to carry on with slightly abbreviated celebrations. 

all y'all already know that around here one monkey don't stop no show, so we will carry on with eating and drinking and carrying on and then, doing it all over again. there will probably be food and drink pictures during the day...

because i have a cake!!

to all y'all on december 25th!

winter is here

and it brings its own particular flavor to the plantation.

i suppose that if it were sunny and warm, i might feel differently, but today, right now, it's cold and dark and quiet. i guess part of the melancholy is hearing about joe cocker and remembering when i first heard him. yeah, death and dying are real harbingers of the holiday season...



he was 70.

i have a birthday coming. i'll not be 70, but...
there will be cake, but not made by me! somehow making your own birthday cake just ain't right!

this winter also brings memories of other winters with friends no longer here. we'll raise a glass or 20 to Big Shelly and remember good times.



winter and the end of the year always remind me that nothing is ever guaranteed and that we should never miss the opportunity to say i love you to the people who are part of our lives.

we can't change the past, we can only be present now.

tomorrow isn't here yet.

i have a question (and no, it's not about santa claus)

i've noticed that quite a few blogs now have a new verification system. 


i love it!

tick a box to prove you aren't a robot?


how damn easy is that?


now how do i install it?

Christmas Cakes Adventure or i bake cake, i did, i did!

Soooooooo, after numerous attempts to get all the photos on here in some sort of order (actually, after editing down the gazillion photos, from my phone, by the by) here's my post about baking Christmas Cakes!

It all started because our pal, bock, the robber did a post on The Mammy's Christmas cake (click on the link to read it, if you haven't already) and I thought, "Cool, that would be fun!"

Little did I know that there's a reason people only make these things ONCE a year! I thought  I had everything I would need, but nooooooo, there are certain parts of this recipe that are not available in the USA or for sure, not in Georgia! Anywho, here's where the stuff started getting crazy involved. 

Eggs and butter, no problem! At room temperature? Ok, well yeah, that caused a slight delay in my mise en place. So, moving right along I kept on assembling the rest of the ingredients...flour, sugar, almonds (more about them later), dried apricots (after the first of many return store runs), dried cranberries, raisins, and sultanas. Now, I know you see those 2 gorgeous green apples and might be wondering, why are those apples there? well , that's what happens when you look at 2 different recipes and forget which one you're really using. You have a few extra items at the end of the day. But no matter, this is where it started getting complicated.

First, I had to MAKE stuff that people in the U.K. and Ireland can just BUY in a grocery store. I made mixed peel! From scratch! That alone was a multi step process that involved more steps than I thought (those were some of the pics that were nixed), but now I have a bag of frozen mixed peel that I will probably never use again! (But, in all fairness, it is really, really tasty!) 

this was step 3 of 4

mixed peel after an overnight drying

Another thing that I had to make was mixed spice! Did I mention that I made a few runs to pick up items I'd overlooked? I had every spice that was needed except ONE and now, for the life of me, I don't even remember which one it was, but on that day, I had a list. I am now in possession of my very own plastic 2 ounce tub of mixed spice.

the ground ginger was on the other counter

I'm guessing at this point, y'all are starting to grow weary of this pictorial journey through hell baking and are wondering, hold on, are the butter and eggs still out? if the mixed peel has to dry over night what ever is she going to do? The answer is yes, she left them out overnight and what was supposed to be an afternoon of fun turned into something else.

blanched almonds and their papery skins

 I blanched almonds and peeled them. I ground up raw almonds into flour. I chopped up crystallized ginger into tiny pieces. I made lemon zest. I made orange zest. Not to mention having to juice all of those lemons and oranges! I chopped dried apricots into tiny pieces. Glace cherries. Have you ever had to quarter those things? I made a mess. (yes, I took a picture of THAT to remind myself.) All of this was before we even got to the whiskey!

see that measuring cup? at one point that seemed to be just the right amount for ME to drink!

my biggest glass mixing bowl!

Now the fun part began. I had to add the Jameson to the fruit and mix it so that "every bit had a chance to indulge in the liquor." That is exactly what the recipe said! This was another overnight bowl of fun. So now, a one day party has become TWO.

everything ready to go on Day 2

 Let's take a breather here because the telling of this tale is making me weary all over again! How about a peek at BBC and BGM?

BBC helping his Dad on Thanksgiving

BGM decided to be Anna Wintour instead of Sherlock for Halloween

Ok, I'm ready. Where was I? Oh yeah, Day 2 of my Christmas Cake Adventure!

drunken fruit

At this point, everything was ready for mixing/assembling/baking. Or so I thought. These cakes required parchment lined pans that had an exterior wrap of folded brown paper tied with twine! Fortunately for me, I had both a HUGE roll of brown paper in the garage (don't ask) and handy, dandy kitchen twine on the kitchen counter. That bit of a job done, which by the way, if anyone knows a simple way to line round pans, please let me know. But I digress (as if y'all weren't used to that by now)...

I left out the pictures of my standing mixer creaming the butter and sugar together and then the adding of the SEVEN eggs. And, of course, the adding of all the other ingredients to the biggest stainless steel mixing bowl in my pantry. The end result was the two cakes you see here. And then there was this...

But the cakes went into the oven at:
 

And two hours later, we still had this:

We also had 2 cakes that needed to be covered (no pic, take my word for it) and baked for another hour! I used the last hour to clean up, I promise! I have to admit the aroma was heavenly and when the cakes came out, it was all I could do NOT to cut a slice before they cooled!

 

 

they really do look better in person than in this photo!

I resisted, but the next morning was a different story! The cakes are currently still wrapped and being doused fed with whiskey once  a week until December 24th when I'll bring one over to my neighbor. The other cake? Well, the MITM has asked that I save that for his return! We'll see how that goes...

Just so you know

there are a  LOT of photos

the post is coming....i hope later today, but here's a sample.

i am so not a food photographer!

stay tuned...

THERE WILL BE CAKE.