First fruit cake of the season

Each year around October we start making fruit cakes, it's like an autumnal ritual. We continue making fruit cakes until early December and usually the Christmas cake is the last one, perhaps by then we have had enough of fruit cake for the year.



I always start with the same recipe from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, then usually change it, for example today I didn't have enough cherries so I added cranberries. Other variations are that I use 50/50 dark brown sugar and golden caster sugar and I always add extra cinnamon and mixed spice.



After a couple of hours in the oven the house was smelling amazing. Now we just need a reason to crack open the first cake and taste it.


The holes are the evidence, I picked out the hot raisins, delicious.

Last minute birthday preparations

I'm still a little jet lagged and we didn't wake up until midday Tuesday, which didn't leave much time to get ready for the birthday on Wednesday.

I started baking the cake at about 7pm, so by the time it had cooked and cooled it was pretty late, but one advantage of jet lag, I wasn't tired.

The requirements for the cake were; pink, a princess and roses. I didn't really have my creative head on though so I just replicated my niece's cake from last year (with a few tweaks).

Princess cake 2010

Princess cake 2009


So, after wrapping presents and decorating the house with birthday bunting, it was then around midnight and I decided I really should make a birthday card. So I grabbed my pen and paints and sketched out a quick card, using the same design as the cake. Card finished in 15 minutes, mission accomplished and ready for the birthday to begin.