Category: Holidays

Fruit Cake In The Making

On By Michel McDonaldIn Food, HolidaysLeave a comment

WOW! I knew there was a lot of ingredients but this is a lot. The fruit and nuts are soaking in rum right now for 3 hours then I get to mix the rest of the ingredients. It’s 5lbs. which if sold at a specialist bakery would be $100. So I’m at least satisfied with that. I really can’t wait for it to be done.

Hours later…

The fruit cake is in the oven for 3 1/2 hours.  I’m looking forward to taking it out and tasting hehe.  By the way, I said earlier that the fruits and nuts were 5lbs.  Well, with the batter it’s over 7lbs.  After I put the fruit cake mix in each aluminum container I weighed them (there are 3 cakes) and they are about 2 3/4lbs each.

Update: 1 1/2 hours to go.  Boy does it smell so good.  I keep looking at it and see it rising and see the color of the cake getting darker and just the smell makes me want to just take it out of the oven early and just take a slice.  But I gotta let it cook all the way because if I don’t it’s not gonna taste right lol.

Update: Ok, I guess I forgot to update this post way back when but the fruit cake was a complete success.  I followed the directions completely and it over cooked just a little so it tasted a little burned but that didn’t stop it from doing a disappearing act real fast.  Next Christmas I’m going to make this again since it was such a hit but not cook it for the exact complete time that it said.  Maybe slice off (pun intended) half hour.  Just to make sure it doesn’t get burned.

Cost Of A Fruit Cake

On By Michel McDonaldIn Food, HolidaysLeave a comment

I just cannot believe how much it costs to make a fruit cake.  Now I know why those things are so expensive.  Dang $51 so far and I still need eggs and margarine.  By the time I have all the rest of the ingredients it will be $55.  I just hope that it makes a whole lot of fruit cake.  It better.

I wanted to make it so bad because I can never find it in the stores and when I find it online it’s so expensive.  A 1lb cake is $25.  I’m sure that I have about a 10lb cake so far lol.  I’m going to have to split it up into a few smaller ones because fruit cake doesn’t have a very good reputation.  I bought these small loaf pans that have lids (disposable pans) and there are 3 in the pack so I can make 3 small.  I also have a regular size loaf pan which I’m going to start with then put the rest in the smaller ones.  I want to bring the small ones because I know that people are going to waste big slices if they don’t like it and it’s too expensive to throw away.

All I know is if I see 1 piece of fruit cake in the trash I’m gonna lose it lol.  Just kidding.  Maybe lol.

Fruit Cake

On By Michel McDonaldIn Food, HolidaysLeave a comment

I plan on buying ingredients to make Fruit Cake for Christmas.  But, instead of just doing it the traditional way by either making it like a loaf in a loaf pan or doing a circle with the middle missing, I’m going to do a loaf but then cut it down the middle then cut the 2 pieces down their middle so it’s 4 long pieces so when you slice it, it comes out like cracker sized.  This way if people aren’t sure if they like it or not then they can just get a slice to taste it.  This way people aren’t taking these huge pieces of fruit cake then taking a bite and realizing how gross it is then throwing the rest of it in the trash.  That would piss me off considering how expensive they are.

Now, when I say “how gross it is” I’m speaking purely on other peoples opinions of fruit cake.  I like fruit cake.  I’ve loved fruit cake since I was a kid so to me it’s not gross at all.  Frankly, I don’t know why people would even give them as gifts at Christmas time considering how expensive they are to buy.  They are also a little expensive to make, not as much as if you were to buy one but still expensive.

But cutting them in cracker sized slices is a good idea, I think it is.  You can probably also make cup cake sized fruit cakes so they are individual and you can use the cup cake paper things so you don’t have a huge mess.  Hey that’s a very good idea.  I’m also thinking of putting some german chocolate cake frosting on the top of the fruit cake to disguise it a little lol.  I’m sneaky that way.

Decorated

On By Michel McDonaldIn HolidaysLeave a comment

The house is finished being decorated.  The tree up, all ornaments on it, the wreath on the door with the plastic canvas candy cane I made for it.  It’s all done finally.  I’ve been putting ornaments on the tree here and there because standing for a length of time hurts my back so I can’t be decorating constantly until it’s all done.

We’re not lights on the outside people so that’s not a problem.  I wish we were but I’m just afraid that in this neighborhood someone will come along with a knife and cut the wires if they are low enough to be able to cut.  I know, paranoia right?  Wrong!  One morning I came outside and saw that our hose which was rolled up in the planter was cut and it was a significant amount of hose too.  I went to walk to the store and saw the piece that was cut laying on our grass.  I don’t give anybody in this hood the benefit of the doubt.  They don’t deserve it.

However, we do have an indoor patio which is actually kinda sorta outdoors.  It’s the space between the house and the garage, it has a wall in the front of the building with a door and the back with a giant window and a door so it’s pretty much closed off.  Darrin bought 2 boxes of lights that he wanted to hang out there, not for holiday decoration but just for regular decoration for mood.  Tonight when I was at the store I picked up these holiday light hanger things that have nails and you hammer the nails into the wood then you just press the wires into the plastic and it holds the lights.  This way if you decide to take the lights off you can then when you want to put them back up you don’t have to do anything, just push the wires back in.  It’s really cool.

Christmas is Almost Here

On By Michel McDonaldIn Christmas, HolidaysLeave a comment

Well I decided to get the Christmas tree from the shed and set it up.  I’m so excited that I can finally set it up.  The Christmas spirit has taken over my body hehe.

Here is a picture of our Christmas Tree from last year.  It’s the same tree, a pre-lit tree.  I took a picture of our cat with her Santa hat on and made it into wallpaper for my laptop and my desktop.  Since my laptop is 1024×768 and my desktop is 1280×768 I have 2 versions of it.  So if you want to download it just click the little version below then it goes full screen, just right-click it and save it to your computer.  The widescreen version isn’t actually 1280×768, it’s smaller but I have it stretched on my screen.