Christmas Cake

I've managed to make the Christmas Cake/s for this year, I say I've managed because I'm starting to slow down a wee bit. I have bursts of energy which I make the most of and then spend the rest of the time feeling desperate for a kip which with boy-child at home is impossible. We took his day sleep off him over 6 months ago in exchange for a 12 hour go-to-bed on time sleep at night.

We did put the Christmas tree up on Monday night and the boy was so excited that bedtime was somewhat delayed by his insistence on "dancing to the Chrimast", which his father is sure is some arc back to an inbred pagan ritual. Then the first words he uttered on Tuesday morning were "mummy do you think the Chrimast is still here?"

Well to the cakes...this is the second year that I have made this recipe. It is from a cookbook of my mother-in-laws although she has never made it herself. It uses a phenomenal amount of fruit and I sometimes think that I just enjoy buying all the ingredients more than the baking and eating. No Sunbeam Mixed Fruit pack in this house!



The love of my life for the last 8 years (recently superseded by the overlocker), the Kitchenaid, was so full of cake mixture, but she chugged through it like a real trooper. Last year I made this cake at my Dad's place in Bundaberg, carted all the ingredients on the plane and mixed the damn thing by hand. This year the Kitchenaid showed me why she should still be number one on my list.So the mixture yielded three cakes, a 20 cm, 18 cm and a loaf, which we are eating now. Yummo, Christmas is early in this house!