The Christmas Cake Part Two

What have two dogs got to do with a Christmas cake you ask? Well, nothing actually, it's just that first of all I thought I'd add these photos from our walk on the moors that wouldn't upload before. At the top are Bilbo and Martha enjoying the stream.


The foreground here is heather which looks wonderful in September when the moors are a great sheet of purple. This photo will definitely benefit from a double click to enlarge it so that the sunshine on the hills in the distance is more visible..


The autumn colours have been very poor here so far but I thought these trees with the sun shining on them looked rather good.


I'm always entranced by the small streams that are everywhere on the moors, they always seem magical to me especially when they tumble over mossy stones like this.There just have to be elves hiding somewhere nearby.


There were a lot of these scarlet fly caps as we dropped lower into the birch trees, they are a typical fungus of birch woods and rather beautiful. Also rather poisonous so best left well alone. Except that something obviously hadn't been leaving them alone, every single one had been eaten to some degree!


Now on to the main event,these are the remainder of the ingredients for the Christmas cake which I made yesterday.


Ready to go in the oven.


Four hours later.


Cooled overnight in the tin and wrapped in double clingfilm ready to go into a storage tin on top of the kitchen cupboard. It will come down twice between now and December 7th to have more sherry drizzled into it - 2 tablespoons each time. Then around the 14th I'll make the marzipan for it.

The parcel for America is also on its way now, I posted it this afternoon so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself this week. It's been a beautiful day too, a slight frost this morning so for the first time this autumn I could hear the leaves underfoot rustling and crackling as I walked. They aren't deep enough yet for kicking through but when they are the 0 comes off my age, 60 becomes 6 and I have a thoroughly good time! The sky has been blue and the sun has shone - it's been a perfect November day and tonight there'll be another frost, it's already very cold and the sky is clear with a brilliant moon even though it isn't full yet. Life is very good. Though not for poor Kaitlyn's mum who fell and broke her wrist very badly on Monday so I shall have to go over tomorrow with offerings of meals - I'll take them a casserole, Somerset chicken and the big cinnamon apple crumble that I made on Tuesday so that will do them for a couple of days.