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Christmas…it is coming!
 By Shelley Munro My husband was speaking to his aunt last week, and she mentioned she was going to make her Christmas cake. It’s barely November, I thought. Way too soon for Christmas. But then I thought back to my childhood. My grandmother always used to make Christmas cakes at this time of the year. So did my mother or at least she’d start thinking about it. In our home economics classes (where we learned cooking as twelve-year-olds) we’d have to put the dried fruit in jars and soak it in ginger ale ready to make a fruit cake in class. November was also a good time to make a Christmas pudding. A bit closer to Christmas, usually in December, it was time to make fruit mince tarts. When I was a teenager, my mother discovered a Christmas cake recipe made with fruit and crushed pineapple. She’d ice it with brandy icing, and I still remember fighting my brother and sister to lick the icing bowl. I’m not a big fan of traditional fruit cakes, but this lighter version was delicious. Do you make a Christmas cake? Do you bake other goodies every year for Christmas? What are your favorites?
Shelley Munro writes contemporary and paranormal tales for Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Publishing. She is absolutely not prepared for Christmas, although she does have some Christmas reads sitting in her to-read pile. Priorities, right? You can learn more about Shelley and her books at www.shelleymunro.com Tags: baking, Christmas, Ellora's Cave, Naughtiest Nuptials, Shelley Munro 12 Responses to “Christmas…it is coming!”Leave a Comment |
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November 10th, 2009 at 5:53 am
My mother makes a ground pecan / walnut bunt pound cake iced with a rum powdered sugar icy for each of us. We eat it Christmas morning with coffee. (We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve.)
Blast from the Past
November 10th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Each year the women on my husband’s side of the family get together and have a massive cookie bake. And I do mean massive. My favorite cookie would probably be the cranberry oatmeal, but the Pitzel’s are also fun.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:51 am
For several years now I make a chocolate fruitcake - everyone goes crazy over it. I make it right after Thanksgiving.
I got the recipe from a Debbie Macomber book - premise: heroine is doing an article on award winning fruitcakes and this one was conceived because the baker’s husband did not like fruitcake but fruitcake was a tradition in her family; they did not have a lot of money - so she came up with a fruitcake with her husand’s favorite ingredients.
The cake is not your traditional fruitcake.
It has cocoa, cream de cocao, pineapple, coconut (which I leave out), dates, walnuts, pecans, chocolate chips and marachino cherries, plus your flour, etc. I think I got everything.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Hey, darling. Just dropping in to let you know I’m bored, so I posted this at Win a Book for ya.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Every year we have my grandmother’s pumpkin pie… she may no longer be here, but her recipe is still our tradition…
November 10th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Nessa - I really like pecans. Your cake sounds yummy and that’s a lovely tradition you have.
Jaime - the Christmas cookie bake seems to be an American tradition. I often wonder how the tradition started. We don’t do that here in New Zealand.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Pat - that sounds delicious. Actually, you had me at chocolate. :)
Susan - thanks so much. You’re a star.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Colleen - It’s weird, but in NZ we always eat pumpkin as a vegetable. It’s hard to get past this when I look or think about a pumpkin pie. I did get adventurous and make pumpkin muffins not long ago, so maybe I’ll get brave and try a pumpkin pie.
I think it’s neat to have recipes passed down through the family. That’s a really nice tradition.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I just like the homemade fudge, divinity, cherry mash candies and pies! Yummmm!
November 10th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Lisa - I always make fudge at Christmas time too. I always associate scorched almonds (choc-covered almonds) with Christmas as well. They’re my favorite. :)
November 11th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Hi, Shelley! We usually do cookies at Christmas; now that the kids are slightly older, I’m hoping we can move back towards baking from scratch :) We’ll see…
November 28th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I don’t bake a whole lot. If I did I would eat it all. My mother used to make dozens of cookies to give to all of us for Christmas though.