A Little Christmas Baking

A couple of weeks ago, I started marinating 6 cups dried fruit in brandy.  Instead of using the candied fruit sold for fruitcake, I used dried papaya, cranberries, cherries, dates, and raisins.  I poured enough brandy in to cover the fruit.  I rotated the bag everyday to get all the fruit soaked.

Today, I mixed up the batter.  For the cake, I used 1 cup unsalted butter, 2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoons salt and 2 teaspoons vanilla in my kitchenaid blender.  After it was all incorporated, scraping down the sides, I added 4 eggs, one at a time.

Stir in the 3 3/4 cups flour and 1 cup orange juice, alternating.

Drain fruit and stir in 2 cups nuts.

I prepared my pans with cooking spray and then lined with parchment paper.  What a chore that was.  I didn't line my 2 loaf pans.  We'll see how it turns out.  Fill each pan about 3/4 full and bake at 325 for 60 minutes.

Check with toothpick to see if the centers come out clean.  Place on cooling rack then remove from pans.  Brush with brandy.  Wrap and let rest at least 24 hours or up to a month, brushing with brany weekly,  I made this fruitcake last year and brushed with brandy every other day.  I was delicious,

This is the best fruitcake I've ever had.
I got this recipe from CJ who's blog in not working.  

This post is being linked to Homestead Revival Blog Hop

Weekend Cooking, Baking and Firewood

Since the days have been cooler, I've been wanting to make some comfort food.  I started with soup.  No name actually.  I looked in the freezer for meat and found some hamburger patties and pulled them out, next I went to the fridge and found some leftover pork roast, pulled it out, with carrots and celery.  Soup needs onions so I went to the garage and cut off an onion from the braid we have hanging in there.  I went to my pantry and got some canned corn and green beans from last year.  So pretty much the soup was all homemade except the meat.

I added a finely chopped jalenpeno, potatoes, garlic, some tomato sauce, beef broth and let it simmer all day.  I didn't want to go to the store for bread so I made bread next.  DB has been talking about wanting some "stretch necks" so instead of making two loaves of bread, I used one for the stretch necks.  I call them "fry bread."  I love making bread, it's so easy and rewarding.  I love the smell of the yeast and the baking.

I didn't get a snap of the bread, this is from last weekend.

And because I was on a roll, I also made Overnight Cinnamon Rolls for Saturday morning.  I started these in the evening.  They only took a couple of minutes to mix together and an hour for the first raising.  I rolled them out and filled them with cinnamon, melted butter, a little nutmeg and some walnuts we harvested roadside last year.  I covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge.  The next morning I took them out while the oven was preheating.  Thirty minutes later we had fresh, hot out of the oven cinnamon rolls.

Firewood:  DBs nephew brought us out a couple cords of wood.  Saturday morning we hauled it all to the back of the house and stacked it.  We'll probably have to get a couple cord more because we don't plan on using our oil heat too much this winter.

DBs in the living room right now, I hear the snap and pop of a fire getting started.  Ahhhh.

This post is also published on Homestead Revival.

Walnuts Galore

I can't believe I've been absent for so long. We picked walnuts a couple of weeks ago. My DB located the owner and was given permission to harvest these walnuts. We got 3 five gallon containers. We set them on our livingroom floor by the woodstove to dry.

Now a couple weeks later after turning them, we put them in bags. They will go out to our pantry and hang until we decide to crack them and freeze them. DB loves zuchinni bread loaded with walnuts. See where this is going? Oh well, I love zuchinni bread also, not to mention everything else I can make with them.
In fact, I think zuchinni bread is on the menu today. Stay tuned!