Now, being Nigella’s biggest fan and having, if you remember, a signed photograph on my fridge as evidence, I was delighted when J told me that she was going to be doing a special Christmas series on BBC2 (Nigella, that is, not J - mind you, I’m sure she could be just as pouty and flirty as the girl herself). If you saw this programme (Wednesdays 8pm I think) you too will have drooled at the rather spectacular Chocolate Fruitcake that Nigella made. J and I were texting each other feverishly throughout: ‘look at that bloody cake!’, etc, and in a rather pathetic attempt in currying favour with the ever-lovely J who is about to dog-sit for me this Christmas (and would have done it anyway, cake or no cake), and seeing as we’re not here for Chrimbo so this is my only chance at a bit of festive baking, I offered to make the cake for her.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chocolatefruitcake_84675.shtml
So far so peachy. Apart from inadvertently buying soft prunes with pips in, therefore having to de-pip 350 g of prunes (tip: try to keep one hand clean, otherwise all the sticky, claggy pruney stuff goes all over your face when you scratch your nose), the purchasing was very easy, and most of it I actually had in the cupboard. Seeing as I was pushing the boat out, I made a special effort and bought Green & Black’s dark cocoa powder as well. The only thing I didn’t have was coffee liqueur, and I thought buying a bottle for 25 quid was a bit excessive, seeing as I don’t like coffee anyway, so I made a nice, strong pot of espresso, measured out 100ml, then added a big 25 ml slug of Morgan’s Spiced Rum. I had a quick taste and it was bloody nice, so in it went.
Anyhoo, as you’ll see from the recipe, all the dried fruit, butter, dark muscovado sugar, honey, liqueur, etc, go into a saucepan and get boiled up together for ten minutes. The resulting smell was better than any Christmas candle you’ve ever had. The whole house was permeated with a wonderful Christmassy, spicy smell that got me in the mood to sing ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ by Maria Carey in a loud voice til Hubby pointedly banged the kitchen door shut (Men. No Christmas spirit). After this lovely, gooey mixture has cooled for 30 minutes, it’s in with the final ingredients: flour, baking soda, eggs….EGGS! There was a split second when I thought I might cry, knowing that we’d had scrambled eggs for breakfast yesterday, and that I’d made lemon-cake-but-with-lime for pudding too. A quick check confirmed my worst fears, so it was out into the truck, Starskey and Hutch style, pausing to apologise to B for shutting her head in the door (much to Hubby’s amusement), and off down the lanes to the next village where, thank the lord, there is a teeny, tiny village shop. Quick pleasantries were exchanged: ‘hi, how are ye?’, ‘not a bother, you?’ and it was off back into the truck, full pelt to the spicy smelling kitchen (complete with cross dog). Phew. Very nice eggs they were too actually, so instead of run of the mill Tesco eggs, this cake was made with fresh, free-range eggs from a farm in Tara. Swanky.
Well, it’s in the oven, so I’ll keep you posted.