Chirstmas cake recipe

A couple of people have asked me for my Christmas cake recipe, there are lots of different versions kicking about but this is the one I do:

1 kg mixed dried fruit (cheapest of the cheap own supermarket brand in my case)
100g glacé cherries
100g chopped walnuts
400ml liquor (anything you want, brandy is traditional, but I didn't have any, so used some rum)
300g butter
180g dark brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoons black treacle
300g plain flour
150g ground almonds
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ginger

23cm cake tin

Method

1) put all the fruit and cherries in a bowl and pour over the liquor of your choice. Cover with cling film for as long as you can, up to a week, but certainly not less that 24 hours. You want the liquor to be absorbed.

2) preheat oven to 150 degrees C and prepare the cake tin, you want it greased and lined with greaseproof paper (double thickness) and have it coming up the sides at least twice as high as the cake tin.

3) Cream together the butter and the sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and mix them in then beat in the treacle.

4) Sift the dry ingredients together then mix the soaked fruit alternatively with the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture, mixing thoroughly.

5) Fold in the walnuts.

6) Put the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for between 2 and three quarters and 3 and a quarter hours. put in a skewer to check it is cooked - it should come out clean (ish)

7) When the cake comes out, sprinkle on a couple of teaspoons of some liquor and wrap it up, in it's tin, in a clean tea towel - this helps keep the top moist.

8) When it is completely cold you can remove it from the tin and peel off the greaseproof paper. Double wrap in foil and store in an airtight tin or tupperware for at least 3 weeks before you do the next stage. I will not do the next stage on mine until December.

Feeding the cake.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of liquor on the cake once a week, turning it each time so you are alternately sprinkling both sides.

After it has 'matured' you want to wrap it in marzipan, using a jam glue and then ice it with Royal icing and decorate. I'll be doing this in December so you can check back how I get on.

Here it is for now.

If any of you try it, do let me know how you get on.

Christmas cake in.

Thank you all, I am sure I will be firing on all cylinders again soon.
The rain never stops in October. Did I once write a post on how wonderful I thought Autumn was? I think I was lying. All I want to do is get out in the garden and make a start on things, roses need pruning, weeding needs to be done, the veg patch needs to be cleared, fences need painting, deck needs oiling, greenhouse needs cleaning and clearing, beds need digging - never stops, but I don't especially want to get out there and get soaked for my troubles - call me a wuss. So I have a Christmas cake in the oven right now - it looks massive! I'm sure it is bigger than last year even though the recipe is identical. The smells wafting out of the kitchen are lovely - the smells are the best bit of Christmas I think.
I hope you are all okay and thanks for bearing with me.

Picking myself up.

As you may have noticed from my recent posts (or lack of) I'm struggling a bit at the moment and just going through the motions, I suppose it is inevitable at times for all of us and I'm not really used to feeling like this because most of the time I am quite self contained and content but I am a tad lonely right now and wondering quite what I am doing.
So I am trying to pick myself up and today I am going to soak some dried fruit to make a Christmas cake as successful as the one I made last year, hopefully. On top of that I am looking out at the garden and contemplating another large bed, the largest one. The problem I have is getting rid of the turf, it is heavy and annoying and I don't really know what to do with it. I have a big pile of it from the last beds that I did, dumped under the decking and it is a bit of a pain so adding to it doesn't sound like a great idea as, ultimately, I will still have to do something with it. I read once that if left long enough it does made good compost, but how long is long enough? Once the bed is made I would like some taller things in it so suggestions welcome, nothing too exotic as the whole feel of the garden is country traditional, but maybe a small conifer would be nice, one that goes up instead of out and doesn't get massive. A lot of my garden dies off in winter so it would be nice to have a few permanent things in there that look good all year. I like box too, but wish it wasn't so expensive as a small box hedge around the bed would be my ideal. Planning and more planning is my approach, as always.

Now what?

After 6 months of endless work, endlessly 'on the road', with all my spare seconds taken up with refitting the bathroom, I am suddenly at a loss. Days stretch out before me with nothing to do, no renovation project left (and not much work, sadly). Now, I hear you cry, what I would give for that problem! Well yes, on the one hand it is nice, but on the other I am finding a slight hole in my life where it was so full before and I know it won't last forever so I should probably cherish it, but it is easy to feel a bit lonely at a time like this and see days stretching ahead with only my own, dubious company.
So I have to pull it together and stop feeling sorry for myself and think of my next project. I am already thinking about next year's garden, next year's veg. I'm not going to be able to keep on putting off the front garden forever, but it is one place that I have not yet a plan, or in fact an idea. I think the general problem is that to get the front garden in any shape is going to take a bit of money. The paths are in a terribly state and really need widening (thanks to having 3 stupid wheelie bins that don't fit on my paths properly  - don't get me started) and as the entire garden is on a slope, landscaping of any description is something that takes careful consideration and is very very difficult to do by myself, especially without good equipment. yes, if money were no object I would have new paths in and walls built to make the lawn area flat, but that is well above and beyond.

As you can see it is rather flat and dull and the one border is in a terrible state.

I have enough to do in the back garden, so I want something low maintenance. So I have considered pulling everything out of the one, sad border and planting rhododendrons - I have good acidic soil for these, I love them and I have the space to let them grow big over the next few years. I am not allowed to have a fence or wall at the front (not entirely sure why that is, but it is in the house building regulation deeds) but I don't think anyone could stop me putting in, say, a lavender hedge along the front. But then I have to consider where to put beds.
When I did my back garden I took months doing drawings, making plans and doing more, updated drawings before I put spade to soil, so I think I will do the same for the front over the winter and then make it next year's project.
So any and all ideas are welcomed, As you know, I love cottage garden styles and am happy to do quite radical things, but budget budget budget (after all, I have no work right now and the money I have made this last 6 months won't last forever!!!)

Bathroom transformation - finally.

Yes, it is done, 9 weeks of toil and swearing but I have finally completed the bathroom transformation and this morning had my first shower in there for 9 weeks. I am proud that I did it, but I swear I would never attempt to do it by myself again, it is way beyond me really and although I will have a go at anything the reason it has taken me so long is because I have been learning on the job. Now just pray nothing leaks - ever.

So this is how my bathroom was before:

It's difficult to tell on this photo, but the bathroom suite was green, the carpet brown and the walls dirty. If you remember, last February I put my foot through the bath and rendered it useless for bathing, a bit of gaffa tape meant that I could, at least, shower.

First things first, strip off the nasty wallpaper.

Then all the tiles off the wall

And finally back to basics with the room emptied - this was a rather frightening moment.

It is very difficult to photograph a small room like a bathroom well to give you the full affect

but.....

here is how it looks now:

Nothing is left from before, new blind, new light, new floor, new tiles, new suite. It all looks so clean!

New shower was the final thing to go in.

The sink is now I pleasant place to brush my teeth.

So there you have it, the hardest transformation I have achieved but I am very proud of it. Nothing about a bathroom is particularly cheap and costs mounted up as I kept on havign to have another trip to B&Q for another bucket of tile adhesive, but in the end the cost for the complete bathroom has come in at well under £1000, which is not bad (is it?) considering how much it would have cost if I were to have got someone else to do it for me. Labour here, was free!

Comforting when things stay the same.

As you know, I have been extremely lax with my postings of late and have, I am afraid, been equally lax with my reading of the 70 odd blogs I follow. Life just sometimes gets in the way and I have been very preoccupied with other 'stuff' going on. When a future is uncertain and you can't quite see beyond next month, let alone next year, it is comforting to dip a tentative toe back into blogland and see that it all is still going on, just as it did. The posts about other peoples lives and still there, recipes and gardening tips are still being shared, dogs antics with lurid purple bones are still to be witnessed and all you lovely people are still commenting as if I had just popped out to the shops for half an hour. Thanks for that.
Comfort comes in the oddest of places.

I'm still alive

Hello everyone.
Sorry (again) for my absence, I have, for the most part, been away working. I got home last night to very long grass and the start of the Autumn in the garden. The glorious blooms have faded somewhat but it has it's own charms still.
Anyway, the biggest thing going on is still the bathroom complete refit, but I am nearly there. It has been 2 months so far and to be honest I am been very fed up of it all, it is one hell of a big task and perhaps slightly beyond me (hence the huge long amount of time it has taken me) Anyway, all the suite is in (minus shower) and today I finished the tiling, tomorrow I will finish the grouting. Then it is the fun part of just doing the nice bits that will make it look like mine. Hopefully the grand unveiling will take place at the beginning of next week, fingers crossed. I am very pleased with it (although my mother's comment was: 'it looks a bit like a gents public loo'. gee, thanks mum).
SO just wait and see, nearly there.
Thanks for not all stop following even though I have been hopeless for months. I am ok, just had a lot going on in my life.
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