Baking Day with the Girls!

Eeeeeeee! Sunday was absolutely the most fun day EVER. 60's and 70's music on the radio, and baking baking baking. We made 8 pounds of fruitcake, 6 dozen peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, the caramel pear tarts from the prior post, but in 5" shells instead of 3", and we split and filled and iced some little 6" cakes as pictured. The cookies were inspired by the discovery of tiny little peanut butter cups at Trader Joe's - they melted into the cookies instead of retaining their shape like chocolate chips, but this was not a negative! And, we did not bake the Panettone because we didn't have the secret ingredient extract at the bakery with us, but we will live to bake again another day. Recipes to be posted with pics upcoming.

Back by Popular Demand – Fruitcake!

OK – this will never convert you if you’re a fruitcake hater, but let me tell you, you may hate fruitcake, but you will LOVE this, if you should ever be so lucky as to get some. This stuff is a tradition now, baked religiously the day after Thanksgiving, and on the occasional day in March when girlfriends from out of town arrive and they lobby hard for an off-season event.


The fruit is soaked in rum for at least a day before baking – figs, dates, raisins, currants, cherries and orange rind. Nothing fluorescent or green. The nuts are almonds and walnuts. There is enough batter to hold it together in a very low-key cakey sort of way, with cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg. This recipe is modified from the original – icky things like pineapple have been eliminated. And non-icky things that simply don’t belong in fruitcake, like macadamia nuts, have been substituted with more reasonable nuts.

It’s baked in a sheet pan, then brushed with rum syrup, and finally it is topped with a thin and lovely drape of marzipan. Rolled out by someone more patient than I am. We usually cut it into six pieces – about 6”x6” square. They’re better after a few days, assuming they last that long, and can be frozen for months without losing their quality. It’s fantastic cut into smaller squares and served with a cup of coffee or a port after dinner. Or, well, you can eat it for breakfast – fruit! Nuts! It’s healthy!!