December 9, 2009

Christmas Fruitcake - The Second Step


Ok - I made my Christmas fruitcake about 10 days ago. Now every 2 days or so I douse it with a small splash of Appleton's Dark Rum. It smells so good.

In a week or so I'll wrap it in an almond paste/marzipan hybrid. I can never find enough marzipan so I have invented an icing with ground almonds and almond flavouring. I add a little yellow food colour to make it more appealing.

Then after that dries I ice the whole thing with Royal Icing which, in turn, becomes rock-hard. But before that happens, I decorate it with Christmas figurines; paper boys, lamp-posts.

Lots of people joke about the unappetizing fruitcake, suggesting it be used for a doorstop or a hockey puck. There are several blogs written by detractors of the fruitcake. Well, Bah, Humbug. Mine's great. Oops! It looks like someone helped themselves to an almond.

3 comments:

Tess Kincaid said...

Yours DOES look wonderful! It's gotta be better than my childhood memories of a dry, hard lump wrapped in foil, rotting in the back of the frige.

Fabulous wintery house painting, Hazel. I love it. LOVE it!!

And great vintage coat finds. You know how much I love retro coats!

Candie said...

OMG!Yummy!

Margaret Gosden said...

I loved the Christmas fruit cake when I lived in the UK.
Yours reminds me of it, including adding the rum! I miss the plum pudding, too. So many rich goodies at Christmas time - at least the rum will give the cake a longer shelf-life, unless it is the most popular eat on your table!