Christmas cake with walnuts and brandy ... in the Thermomix

Well, I've been experimenting with Christmas cake recipe and I made this a little while ago and had very good results with them. However, my mother asked for Christmas cake with brandy instead of sherry and also with nuts in them, so I experimented a little more and came up with this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1kg mixed dried fruit
• 500ml of milk (any sort)
• 400ml of brandy
• 375g of crushed walnuts
• 300g self raising flour

Instructions:

• Soak fruit in milk and brandy for at least 4 - 6 hours or overnight
• Preheat oven to 150°C
• Line a 25cm cake tin with baking paper and set aside
• Place fruit mixture, nuts and flour into mixing bowl and mix for  90 sec / Reverse / Speed 3 (for more even distribution of flour, put flour in the middle between layers of fruit and nuts
• When mixing is done, pour out into a large bowl and hand mix a little to make sure the flour is evenly distributed right through the mixture
• Pour into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

This turned out very, very well. It was super easy to make and not really all that different from the first recipe. There's a little bit more flour in it and also the walnuts.

The walnuts gave this Christmas cake a very lovely texture.

This is makes up quite a large batch of batter and I was baking them in a muffin tin for single serve Christmas cakes that we could serve on Christmas Day lunch.

For single serve Christmas cakes, they only need to be in the oven for 40 minutes and they are done.

This recipe makes about 14 single serve Christmas cakes.

When you first bite into these, you get a lovely whiff of the brandy escaping from the cake and getting a lovely nose full of the brandy fumes. The cake itself is slightly drunken but not overly so.

If you want to continue to get the cakes even more drunken, you put the cakes in an air tight container, poke a few holes into them and pour more brandy, sherry, rum or any alcoholic beverage of your choice into it, over a few days, weeks or month. This will sufficiently preserve the cake and marinate it at the same time. With copious quantities of the special juice :-) the Christmas cakes will last a long time, even if you don't keep them in the fridge.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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A rather yummy Christmas cake ... in the Thermomix

It's getting around to the festive time of year again and my how quickly the year has zoomed past. This year, like the year before, and the year before that, I am responsible for making the dessert on Christmas Day lunch.

Previously, I've made my famous creme brulee in the Thermomix and that was very well received. In actual fact, my mom had asked for the creme brulee again but since we are traveling 2 hours to get to Christmas Day lunch, the creme brulee is not going to survive in the car for that duration so I had to think of something else to make and I landed upon Christmas cake.

Now, those of you who know me will know that I am no baker by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I am no baker at all and I like all my baking to be simple and done in the Thermomix, as you can tell from my banana bread and zucchini bread recipe.

I, of course, immediately rang my friend Yanna and asked for a recipe.

This is what she gave me:

Ingredients:

• 1kg mixed dried fruit
• 620g full cream milk, white coffee or chocolate milk
• 280g self raising flour

Instructions:

• Soak fruit in milk for at least 4 - 6 hours
• Preheat oven to 150°C
• Line a 25cm cake tin with baking paper and set aside
• Place fruit mixture and flour (put the flour in the bottom) into mixing bowl and mix for  60 sec / Reverse / Speed 3
• Pour into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

Which I varied a little bit, but not by very much, because I know enough to know that baking is a lot more exact than cooking.

I added 250g of sherry and the remainder in fat free soy milk instead of 620g of full cream milk, because (1) I wanted the Christmas cake to be drunken, and (2) I'm lactose intolerant and can't have full cream milk. Plus, I soaked the fruit overnight instead of just for the few hours that the recipe requested.

I also baked them in my customary single serve muffin tin sizes, rather than a full cake tin, since I like my cakes and muffins in single serves. In the single serve sizes, the Christmas cake took 45 minutes to cook.

The cakes turned out very well and very fruity. It's kind of an odd recipe because it's like 95% fruit. It's the sort my mom really likes too cos she likes her cake with lots of fruit and very little "cake". In fact, just enough cake to hold it all together. :-)

The Boy who is not a fan of Christmas cake at all liked it, which says a lot for it since he usually cannot be convinced to eat the stuff. I will take it as a win.

This recipe made exactly 12 single serve mini Christmas cakes.

The next time, I am going to try adding nuts to the recipe and maybe a bit more flour. That would take a little bit more experimenting.

In the meantime, if I do not post again before Christmas, have a very Merry Christmas and may you have a blessed day with family and friends.

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd


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Fettuccine Boscaiola ... or in this case, spiral pasta

My beloved Boy is cooking dinner tonight. He has decided that he wants to cook more and become more proficient in the kitchen, so I'm happy for him to take over cooking and meal duties now and then.

The Boy has been talking about being in the mood for a tomato based pasta dish for days, most of this week, actually, but at the last minute decided on a creamy sauce pasta instead.  He said he wanted something with ham so I thought Boscaiola, which yes, I know is made with bacon, but still .... who can complain about bacon, right?

I went onto the interwebs in search of a recipe and came up with this which sounded tasty and easy to make.

I gave it to The Boy to read over and he seems comfortable that he can tackle it without any help from me. Anyway, I'm kicking back while he is cooking, which, let me tell you, is very nice.

Here's the recipe for this particular Boscaiola, which we are making with spiral pasta instead of fettuccine, just because The Boy did not feel like fettuccine.

Ingredients:

• 400g dried curly fettuccine pasta
• 250g rindless bacon rashers, thinly sliced
• 40g butter
• 400g cup mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 5 shallots, ends trimmed, thinly sliced
• 425ml pouring cream
• 30g (1/3 cup) shredded parmesan
• 30g (1/3 cup) shredded romano
• Parmesan (optional), extra, to serve

Instructions:

• Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain.
• Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat, stirring often, for 4 minutes or until golden. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a plate.
• Heat the butter in the frying pan. Add the mushroom and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until tender and the liquid has reduced.
• Add the pale section of the shallot and stir to combine. Stir in the bacon and cream. Simmer for 6-7 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly. Add the parmesan and romano, and stir until well combined.
• Add the pasta and green section of the shallot to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper and toss until well combined. Divide the pasta among serving dishes. Top with extra parmesan.

Since it was The Boy cooking, he tends to like to follow the recipe exactly when cooking for the first time ... well, most of the time really. I'm the one who improvises.

Anyway, he did follow the recipe almost exactly, but with the shallots, since we didn't have any fresh ones, just frozen ones, he just put them in towards the end to the mushrooms, bacon and cream and cooked it all together. There was no green section of the shallot to put in at the end. It all just went in with the sauce.

He also used spiral pasta rather than fettuccine. For some reason, he did not feel like fettuccine and decided on spiral pasta instead. The spiral pasta turned out great for the sauce to coat every little spiral on it.

The recipe doesn't say so, but salt and pepper to taste is important. With adding so much pasta to the sauce, it can taste a bit bland if there's not enough salt and pepper. You don't need a lot, but a pinch or two of both really helps.

The dish turned out to be very, very tasty. It made enough for 6 serves so we have plenty of leftovers for The Boy to take some to work over the coming days for lunch too.



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