Xmas Fruitcake Project 2005 - Step 1 -

OK. Now I’m done with the step 1 of my Xmas fruitcake project 2005. I finally soaked some dried fruits and nuts in liquors this morning. Ever since I read chika’s post about ten days ago, I had been thinking about it but I just couldn’t get it done until today. Now I feel so relieved… I won't have to worry about it for about a month. Then I’ll need to rummage through the net looking for a Xmas fruitcake recipe, because I’m not going to use the one I used last year. Well, actually I cannot, even if I wanted. Before starting chopping up dried fruits this morning, I checked my Xmas fruitcake entry from last year, and found out that I forgot to link to the recipe site when I posted that entry. :P This time I used a recipe that I found on this site, posted by someone called Canarybird. I chose this one because it called for grated orange and lemon rinds as well as their juice -- sounds like a nice fruity touch -- and the amounts are also given in grams. :) I did not use apple and suet, but added just a little apple juice. ( I remembered doing that last year and it didn’t hurt.) For the liquor, I substituted brandy with white rum and orange curacao. This may be a bit off the wall, but I don’t care for brandy flavored fruitcake very much. BTW, I didn’t use all of the grated rinds shown in the photo. I got a little carried away when grating the rinds, but actually I only needed a quarter of each. I should bake something tomorrow to use up the leftover rinds… Well, what’s coming next is step 2 of my Xmas fruitcake project 2005: baking a fruitcake (or might be 2 loaves), which should be somewhere at the end of November or beginning of December. This year I want to let the cake mature for at least 3 weeks. I liked my fruitcake very much last year, but improvements are always welcomed, you know :)