How I Spent My Five Days of Summer Vacation

Friday~
 My first attempts with royal icing flowers:

  And my first time dyeing with acid dyes:

Saturday~
 Chocolate cake with blackberry filling and white chocolate buttercream for my Mother-in-Law:

And 24 cupcakes using leftover batter and icing for the church bake sale:

Sunday~ church and visiting with the in-laws.


Monday~
 Housework, knitting, cooking, and having Mom over for her Mother's Day:

  
Tuesday~
 More knitting and dyeing!

Canning Day! Four Berry Jam

I spent a very productive morning making fourteen pints of this - delicious Four Berry Jam!  I've made many different types of jams and jellies over the years, but this one is still by far my favorite.  I use a recipe that I found years ago here, and have modified.  One of the things that I like the most is that it's not overly sweet.  The berry flavor really shines through, resulting in a delicious taste of summer all year.  It takes less than an hour to make one batch of jam, and the results will last all year long (unless you give it all away - that's why I made two batches today!).

As you will see from the recipe, I use frozen berries for this.  You certainly can use fresh berries, but our berry bushes don't produce enough yet for that, and it's less expensive for me to buy frozen than fresh.  Make sure that if you buy frozen berries they are the "no sugar added" type.  I usually pull all of the bags of berries out of the freezer at night, let them sit in the sink to thaw, then rinse and drain in the morning.  

It cost me about $55 for the ingredients to make two batches of jam, coming to approximately $4 per pint.  Since this will last us all year, and be used for gifts, it's well worth it!  You could probably spend less, but I buy good quality frozen berries that I know from experience are not 3/4 ice...  If I were to use fresh berries, the current cost would be about $70, given the current prices in my area at the local grocery stores and farmer's markets.  Plus, there's a very small window in which the four varieties of berries are all ripe at the same time, so quality can be a concern here when buying fresh.  If you want to use fresh, please do!  And if you want to use frozen, don't feel guilty - the jam turns out beautifully, and no one will be able to tell!

Four Berry Jam 

2 c frozen blackberries - thawed, rinsed, drained

2 c frozen blueberries - thawed, rinsed, drained

3 c frozen raspberries - thawed, rinsed, drained

3 c frozen strawberries - thawed, rinsed, drained

2 boxes regular pectin

10 c sugar (a 10 lb bag will be just enough for two batches of jam)

7 pint jars, with rings and fresh lids

1. Combine all the berries in a very large stainless steel pot.  If you don't have quite enough of one type of berry, use extra of another.  If you're short on blackberries, use extra blueberries.  Low on raspberries, increase the strawberries.  The important thing is to use 10 cups.  Slightly more is okay, too.

2. Mash them up really well.  If the blueberries don't all mash, that's okay.  They'll burst as they cook.

 3. Add the pectin to the berries and, over med-high to high heat, bring the berries to a full, rolling boil.  Stir frequently.  You know you're there when it keeps boiling despite being stirred.

4. Add the sugar and stir really, really, really well.  Return to a full, rolling boil.  Keep stirring often!  Once a full boil has been reached, boil for one minute.  Then put the jam in prepared pint jars, leaving 1/4" of headspace, and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

5. Let cool completely.  If any of the jars don't seal properly, you can try processing them again, or you can just stick the jar in the fridge and eat it first.

Additional Note:  Sometimes, there's some extra jam.  If I'm making more than one batch, I usually sterilize an extra half-pint jar.  Whatever is left after I fill the pint jars goes into the half-pint one, then when I'm all finished it goes in the fridge and is used first.  If I'm only making one batch, the extra goes in a small ramekin.  It's really good mixed in with some Greek yogurt...

Cinnamon Roasted Pecans

I started making these nuts for Christmas several years ago.  We host a kind of open house on Christmas Day for our extended family, and I like to have lots of different finger foods available.  I don't remember where I found this recipe, but it is easy to make, foolproof, and addictive - what more could you want?!  They are great for a party or for gift-giving.  While pecans are expensive here, the rest of the ingredients are things that you'll likely have on hand, making it a pretty economical - and unique - gift.  I start buying the nuts before Thanksgiving, a bag or two each time I get groceries, so its not insanely expensive all at once.

I've modified the original recipe, and also tripled it.  If you don't want to make lots at once, feel free to cut the recipe by a third, but be aware that you may need to decrease the cooking time by 15 minutes or so.

Cinnamon Roasted Pecans

3 egg whites
1 T cold water
1 T vanilla
3 lbs pecan halves
1 1/2 c white sugar
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3/4 t salt
3 T cinnamon

1. Thoroughly grease two 9" x 13" glass pans.  Preheat the oven to 250* F.

2. In a very extremely large mixing bowl, combine egg whites, water and vanilla.  Whisk well, until foamy/frothy but not stiff.  Add nuts and toss until well coated.

3. In a separate bowl, combine sugars, salt and cinnamon.  Mix well.

4. Add 1/2 of the sugar mixture to the pecans.  Toss well to coat.  Add remaining sugar mixture.  Stir and toss well.

5. Divide the pecans between the two prepared pans.  Spread them out so that they are evenly distributed in the pans.

6. Bake at 250* for 1 1/2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.  Pour nuts on to parchment paper lined cooling racks, and cool completely. 

It's Fruitcake Time

This year I decided to make fruitcake. I blame Alton Brown for giving me the idea, as I recently picked up his first Good Eats cookbook, and it includes his Free Range fruitcake -- all dried fruits, doused in liberal quantities of rum. But the roots of my fruitcake experiment go further back. As a child I loved the TV special A Christmas Memory. We would go to Grandma's house, since she had a color TV, to watch Truman Capote's "evocative narrative focuse(d) on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season." * Fruitcake figures largely in the sweet story of the happy holidays young Truman spent with an elderly, slightly batty cousin.

Years later my brother married a Southern girl, and her first Christmas brought our family portions of several types of fruitcake her family made every year. There were white ones, dark ones, densely alcoholic cakes and gently fruity types. I think I loved them all! Unfortunately, my SIL's relations with her family went downhill after she married my brother, and we never got to sample those lovely wares again.

So here it is, Christmas 2012 approaching. My loving husband, who hated even the thought of fruitcake, has been gone for several years. (Hopefully St. Peter didn't meet him at the gates with a sample of Heavenly Manna stuffed with artificially green candied cherries and lemon peel. LOL) I felt I needed some fun new holiday traditions. Fruitcake seemed perfect, especially when I found out both my kids inherited my enjoyment of it.

That's how I found myself over Thanksgiving having a Fruitcake Bake-a-Thon. I made two loaves of a white one with no alcohol, only orange juice. It holds the most typical mix of candied fruits. I made what turned out to be three loaves of Alton Brown's lovely offering. After soaking the dried fruit overnight in rum, (I chose Sailor Jerry's Spiced variety), you then simmer it on the stove while melting in the butter and brown sugar. AMAZING! I wish I could have a pot on the stove everyday, it smelled so spicy and rich. 

My third recipe is called Stephen's Dark, and is a take-off on the old Joy of Cooking recipe. Since my Joy fell apart years ago and somehow never got replaced, I'm using Stephen's version for what should have been two loaves but ended up more one and a half. It has a mix of dried and candied fruit. You put alcohol inside, (I used Marsala, since I had it on hand), and then as it bakes you pour more whiskey over it every 15 minutes. I don't drink, so I had to seek help from others before shopping for the alcohol, and for this step I bought Jim Beam Black. They man at my local liquor store had clearly fielded Christmas baking questions before, and made me feel right at home. 

As soon as the fruitcakes come from the oven you douse them with the chosen liquid, and let them cool in the pan. Then you douse them again, remove from the pan, and wrap them in cheesecloth which has also been soaked in the alcohol or juice. I'll admit I wrapped them first, then poured the liquid over until they were soaked. It seemed easier and a lot less messy. The cakes now reside in sealed plastic bags, and get re-doused every few days. (I'm may run out of rum before Christmas.) I think the alcohol keeps them from molding, but I also read you can refrigerate them after a week or two, so I may do that just to be sure.

I can already tell you these lovelies are good, as one of the Free Range cakes was smaller than the rest, and I decided to try a bite before wrapping it up...     Did you know a tiny wedge of fruitcake is great with a cup of hot tea in the morning? Or in the afternoon? Or just before bed? And it got better everyday, even without the extra rum. Yum.

I think part of what makes them so good is quality ingredients. I used lovely dried Turkish apricots, flavorful dried tart cherries, and some organic figs, among many other fruits. I purchased almost everything fresh, mostly from Whole Foods. The cake part is pretty much a pound cake, and I used real, fresh butter. Shortly before Christmas, sections of these cakes are going out to the kids, and we will be enjoying and making notes for changes or improvements for next year. Should be, as the man on TV says,  "Good Eats".


*Wikipedia "A Christmas Memory"
**You can watch a newer version of  A Christmas Memory on Netflix. You-Tube has portions (in b&w) of the version I grew up with, starring Geraldine Page, and narrated by Capote himself. The short story is also available on the web.