For various reasons connected to bad colds, not much baking got done pre-Christmas.
So, i’ve just cooked a tray of mincemeat tarts.
The Cub has requested a chocolate cake with real icing, not the boughten or butter icing. Cakes are made and i’m currently melting 5 oz semi-sweet chocolate to begin the icing.
Shortbread and sugar cookies are definitely on the horizon.
We have a quart of heavy cream left from the Christmas eggnog. Sticky toffee pudding is a strong contender. Maybe homemade caramels - anything else?
There is leftover custard sauce and leftover hard sauce (tastes differ in the Glas’ house), so I have been requested to make another of Granny P’s steamed carrot pudding. No hardship there - I love this pud!
There is also enough pastry dough in the freezer for tarts (there is leftover butter tart filling) and a single-crust pie (pumpkin, maybe?).
Help me - I can’t stop baking!
Ah, man. I didn’t make mince tarts this year because the Ms. doesn’t care for them. I don’t know what you ehs put in your tarts; mine are just fruit and nuts and a bit of brandy. Sadly, we have overdosed on sugar this year with cookies and other deserts, so no tarts for me until next time around.
I use the mincemeat recipe from an Anglican Ladies’ cookbook.
Ingredients include:
Ground beef
Suet
apples
Vinegar
Sugar
Molasses
Lemons including grated rind
Oranges including grated rind
Raisins
Currants
Allspice
Cinnamon
Cloves
Apple juice
The first time I made it in our relationship, Mrs Piper said “You’re cooking meat and fruit TOGETHER?!?”
She’s come around though. A few years ago I was cooking it on a Saturday when she was out shopping. She came home, breathed in the aroma, smiled, and said: “You’re making Christmas!”
What’s “real icing?”
Because if it’s Royal Icing, no thanks!
Cub doesn’t like the sickly sweet goo that comes in a tin from the store (“boughten”), and he doesn’t like butter icing, which has such a high butter component, creamed with sugar.
Instead, for chocolate cakes, I melt chocolate semi-sweet in a water bath pot, with a bit of butter. Add whipping cream. Then mix in the baking sugar and vanilla, and ice the cake while it’s warm. Nice shiny chocolate icing, without the heavy butter flavour.