A tipsy Christmas Cake

How many memories this recipe brings back to me, we used to make our Christmas Cake on Sir-Up Sunday which was around the end of November, this year it was the 22nd November and I sadly missed it, but I made my cake last weekend instead.

On Stir-Up Sunday we would make the cake in the afternoon, after morning church and the Sunday baked dinner. Mum would mix it up and then all the family would stir it a few times and make a wish as they did so. The smell of the dried fruit soaking (becoming tipsy as mum said) the week before had already scented the house, then the baking sent out even more delicious scents of spices and cooking cake. The cake, once baked, was 'fed' sherry every week until it was well and truly tipsy, it was as dangerous, and delicious, as mum's Christmas trifle!

Making the cake was so exciting because it meant that Christmas wasn't that far away and the Advent Calender count down would start from the 1st December along with the count down to Santa Claus.

Mum had two recipes, both are boiled fruit cakes and one uses an ingredient that no longer exists, Maxam Pastry Mix, it was an Australian packet pastry mix from the '50's - '60's. Thankfully she also had one that uses flour and this is the one that I use.



Christmas Fruit Cake - boiled
Slow to moderate oven
Cooking time 2 hours
Greased, paper lined, cake tin

1lb of dried fruit (mum always used a packet mix of Australian dried fruit, but I get mine from the Co-Op, always Australian and organic)
1/2 lb butter
1 teas mixed spice (I use much more and add unusual things like cardamon and black pepper)
blanched almonds for the cake and decoration
1 tablespoon golden syrup (or Cocky's Joy as we called it)
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup water
3 well beaten eggs
1 teaspoon coffee essence or Parisian essence (makes the cake dark)
Small teaspoon baking powder
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self raising flour

Week before
Soak dried fruit in one cup of an alcohol of your choice, I usually use whiskey or sherry

On baking day
Put the tipsy dried fruit, half the almonds, butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, mixed spices, water into a large, heavy based, saucepan and bring to a gentle boil, drop to a simmer, simmer for 10 minutes, let cool.

Once cool, mix in the eggs, essence, then the sifted flours and baking powder.

Pour cake into your prepared cake tin. Wrap your tin in layers of newspaper so the cake doesn't bake too fast, I put extra paper on the bottom to prevent burning. This is a moist cake, so don't overcook it. Cool cake in tin, take out, wrap in alfoil and pour over your 3 tablespoons of alcohol of your choice (I use whiskey), store in a cool, dry place and feed it alcohol each week, until its well and truly tipsy!

Greased and papered tin


Ready for the oven


Wrapped up for the oven


A proud daughter keeping her mother's traditions alive

A plain cake

A family favorite this, mum's 'plain cake' is anything but, it is buttery and rich and you can add different ingredients such as preserved ginger, caraway seeds, walnuts, spices etc.

The cake was made by mum when the 'aunts' came to visit, her friends, back in the '60's your parent's friends were Aunty or Uncle, regardless of their relationship to you, it was just good manners. She also made it for church socials and similar events, it was extremely popular with family and friends.




Plain cake
1/2 pound butter
1 large cup sugar
4 eggs
3 cups self raising flour
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 pinch salt
Essence of lemon, or grated lemon rind, or both, you can also change to rose water or vanilla essence
Preserved ginger or walnuts or caraway seeds etc.

Method
Cream sugar, butter and salt together, then add the eggs, one at a time, then put bi-carb into your cup of milk, mix, then add milk and flour alternately to bowl until all is combined. Add the essence of lemon, or grated lemon rind, or both, and mix to combine again. Cook for 1 and a 1/2 hours in a slow oven.

Serve at an afternoon tea for your friends.

Peanut cookies for mother's day

A post on mother's day in memory of my mum.

Peanut cookies were one of my favorite home made biscuits when I grew up, they were extremely moorish but I think the real reason was the trip to Paddy's Market to get the main ingredient of raw peanuts, such an exciting place to visit.

Paddy's Market in the '60's was not the sterile place it is today, then it was alive with the smells and squawking of live chickens, ducks, geese, tempting sweet puppies and kittens that I so wanted to have for my very own, sweet fluffy chicks, laying hens and song birds of all varieties. Fruit, vegetables, fresh eggs of all sorts, fish, meat. Fresh raw and roasted peanuts and something called rock candy that I adored that was hand made by a sweet maker and only available at Paddy's, it was a kind of nougat filled with nuts and dried fruit and really hard, hours of chewing pleasure for a kid. I was delighted and fascinated by the market and when I went to Thailand in the mid-seventies I recognised my childhood past in the the markets I saw there.

The nuts and veggies fetched, we'd go home and mum would make these peanut cookies, after a cuppa, a bex and lie down of course.

These biscuits are sweet and very crunchy, a perfect afternoon tea biscuit.

1/2 lb butter
1 and 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 scant dessertspoon of cocoa
3 cups self raising flour
2 small eggs
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 cups raw peanuts, skins left on

Beat sugar with the two eggs, then add peanuts, salt, vanilla essence, self raising flour, cocoa and mix all together.

Melt the butter and mix into above ingredients while still hot.

Make into small round balls and flatten onto a greased tray, they will spread quite a lot.

Cook in a moderate oven for 10 - 15 minutes. Watch them because they can catch and burn.

Cool on tray a bit before putting onto a cake rack to completely cool.

Mum's recipe doesn't say how many they make, I usually get around 25 from the mix.

Enjoy.

Basic ice cream

I learnt cooking from my mum, nanna and my Greek next door neighbours, but all my basic cooking skills come from mum, how to boil, poach and fry an egg, make toast, make béchamel sauce, cakes of all types, puddings, baked dinners, make a good gravy, the list goes on, all the cuisine in the repertoire of the Australian-English home cook.

I love using mum's recipes, she wasn't a chef or a famous cook, but she was a damed fine cook of Australian-English cooking, reading her recipes brings her into my kitchen, I can see her writing letters to my brother in Perth with the same writing style, her hand writing in her recipes is a reminder of her.

This is the ice cream I grew up on, as a child I wanted shop bought Streets ice cream and was embarrassed by this home made stuff, though I loved eating it, vanilla ice cream with milo sprinkled over it - yum!

Now I make my own ice cream from organic ingredients, and I have never made mum's, so I shall and then post about it.

There are no eggs in this recipe, instead, flour is used as the thickener, very 'make do and mend'.

Custard base
1 quart (old imperial measure) of milk
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup flour

Mix sugar and flour together thoroughly. Scald milk and add to dry mixture. Cook until thickened over a hot element, stirring occasionally. Chill in fridge. This makes 5 cups of custard base.

To make the ice cream
1 cup custard base
1 cup cream (real pouring cream, not thickened with gelatin)
1 and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Whip cream until just stiff, fold in the other ingredients well. Freeze, bring out of freezer and mix again, freeze, do this a few times, the more its done the smoother and less icy the ice cream will be. Use an ice cream churn if you have one.

Mum would add different flavouring: chocolate, fresh fruit, coffee, she would also layer it for 'something fancy' like a birthday and make little treats in an ice block tray.

Inspiration for this blog

This is my mother Edna, taken in the 1930's at a skating rink. She was born in 1916, the youngest of 12 children, her mum, my grandmother, died in the 1918 flu epidemic at the end of the Great War (WWI), this broke up the large family and my mum was brought up by a childless aunt (my grandmother's sister) and uncle, my 'nanna' and 'pop'.

Mum was trained as a dressmaker and I grew up with her tales of 'make do and mend' in the depression years, she was very good at it, making herself a new evening frock every week to wear to the Saturday night dances and saved for a cruise to New Zealand.

In the late 1930's she met my dad, they married in 1939 at the start of WWII, my brother and sister were born during the war, but I'm the belated baby boomer child.
My mum's dad was German and her mum was Australian (English parents), my dad's mum was French and his father, Scottish, so we kids are second generation Australian from German, French and Scottish immigrants of the early 20th century with a local thrown in for good measure.

I have a pile of hand written recipes from my mum, food that says comfort and love. Food that is a reminder of a different time and pace in Australia. I don't have the original's, my elder sister has them, and my photocopies are fading, so its time to move them to a new medium and share with other's on the inter web. I hope you enjoy them.

I was inspired to write down my mum's hand written recipe's by @frombecca on Twitter, she is a foodie and poster of great recipes in the tweet and blog sphere. Her Becca's Bakery blog posts her mum's hand written recipes.



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