haha...I have dried all sorts of beans in my cupboard for making yummy chili that you need to cook all day long. ;)

I am a planner though. There's no doubt about that. If you see my posts about my study habits you'll see evidence of it there too. I get stressed when I haven't got things organized and it just makes life easier if you have a timetable, even if it's just a mental one to keep you on track. :)

From what Monster said, fruitcake is different in the US. At least wedding cake is (whereas ours is similar to Christmas cake - the amount of alcohol is wwhat preserves it)

I've never had a problem with fruitcake, in fact as a non-cake person a small piece is probably my favourite. I just can't bear the marzipan and royal icing. It even looks like a cast!

Tell you what though - if we end up doing edibles for secret santa you should send a piece of your cake. Show the merkins how it's done down under :)

Would you post the recipe?

I don't like marzipan either, but I do put what's refered to as plastic icing on it. I think I posted a pic of one of my christmas cakes a couple of years ago somewhere around here. I'll see if I can find it.

Of course, the decorations have to change every year. I'll definitely post pics of this years one once it's finished.

Sure thing dar. I'll do that a bit later on today. :)

Here's a picture of the cake I did two years ago.

Dark Fruit Cake
 

This my mum's old recipe which used to be her mother's. Back in those days everything was still in the old measurements, so I'm going to just give you the recipe as it's written. I'm going to add a bit more liquid to the recipe this year though so it's just a little bit more moist.

Ingredients

2 - 3 lb Mixed fruit (I get all sorts of exotic dried fruit including crystalized ginger)
1 glass of rum or brandy (this year I'm using brandy)
8 oz butter
8 oz brown sugar (I use muscovado)
6 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tspn bicarb soda
2 tspn parisienne essence (this is just a browning agent)
1 tblspn mixed spice
1 tblspn ground ginger
1 tspn instant coffee powder
1 tspn cocoa

(At this point, the only other instruction my mum's recipe has is: bake about 3.5 to 4 hours. I'll give you the method she taught me though. That might make it easier.)

Method

Place all dried fruit into a large bowl and pour over brandy. (I usually use 2 cups instead of 1, so did my mum) Leave to soak for about 2 weeks, stiring occasionally.

1. In a mixing bowl, add softened butter and sugar. Beat until creamed.

2. In a separate bowl, add all dry ingredients together. In another bowl crack room temperature eggs.

3. Alternately add eggs and dry ingredients to butter and sugar mixture on a low speed until the mixture reaches a smooth consistency, add in parisenne essence and mix thoroughly.

4. Remove bowl from mixing machine and add fruit mixture. Stir gently until all fruit is evenly distributed throughout cake batter.

5. Line a large cake pan with baking paper.

6. Pour cake mixture into pan.

7. Place filled cake pan into large roasting pan half filled with water. (this helps to keep the cake moist as it's cooking)

8. Place cake in a low heat oven. (about 150 celcius)

9. Bake for about 3.5 hours.

10. When cake is cooked, remove from oven and leave in cake pan to cool. (At this stage you can put slits in the top of the cake and pour additional brandy or rum over the cake if you desire. I don't do this, but some recipes suggest you can and it would be fine with this one.)

11. When cake is completely cool, remove it from the pan but leave the baking paper around the cake till you're ready to decorate or serve.

Wow your cake looks gorgeous! I hope your family appreciates all your hard work just for them! :)

They sure do. Actually, my husband comes from a very small family. More or less just him and his mother (who was what you'd call an abusive alcoholic when he was kid. Now she's just an alcoholic) and they never really did much about Christmas.

I remember the first Christmas we had together. I told him about it during the lead up, and he saw all my preparations, and to be honest, he was dreading it. Thought he'd hate all the fuss and noise.

In the end, he said to me the next day that it was the best Christmas he'd ever had.

The funny thing is, the day after last Christmas I was overwraught after having had words with my father about a family issue and said I didn't want to worry about Christmas next (this) year, and he's been the one telling me to get excited about it, and I'll regret it if I don't etc, and that he wants me to do all the usual stuff because it part of what makes me special to him. Apparently he likes the way these things bring our extended family together, and having come from virtually nothing, it means all the more to him.

So in short, yes they do. The kids just love everything about how we celebrate Christmas in our house and I just love seeing my family have fun and enjoy the fruits of my labours. :)

Sounds like you could leave the parisienne essence out. Looks delicious... old-school desserts are usually the best ones.

Yeah...I could leave it out. I did actually leave it out one year and wondered why it wasn't as dark as usual. lol D'oh!

It is a good recipe. The fruit smells delicious, but I think I can attribute that to the good quality brandy Dazza brought back through duty free. :)

Yesterday I went to get some christmas stuff, and found that I could get a whole heap of chocolate bauble ornaments for the tree, so this year, our tree is going to be chocolate coated. :)

Hope they're Cadburys.
We used to fight over the tree chocs, till one of us had one. Ewwwww, cheap choc off the market! Visiting friends' Mums thought we were ideal little Christian children, because we would offer them to guests :D

Some of them are lindt, so they'll be yumm. I think some of the others are generic, but I don't think the kids will care. :)

Actually, I'm exaggerating. That was one Christmas :)
They were grim though.