Cracked Cauldron Spillings

Apparently, blogger was hacked and many blogrolls adversely affected, mine included. Fortunately, I keep back-ups. It will be a bit of a pain to restore it, but it will be done as soon as Blogroll gives the all-clear. In the meantime, I have no clue what links will appear or how they got there.

Last night's baking adventure was a much happier affair. Fruit cakes.

I personally detest candied fruits in fruit cakes, much prefering dried fruits, and even fresh ones where possible. We have created a banana fruitcake that we hope will age well. We started out with a banana bread recipe, added extra dried fruits - pineapple, oranges, tart cherries and cranberries, mangoes, and papaya, toasted brazil nuts, pecans, and filberts. We added in a few yummy spices. Then we soaked it in a lush coconut liquor and rum.

We also made a "white fruit cake", which meant flavoring the sugars rather than adding the spices directly, and selecting pale fruits and nuts. This one was made with almonds, apples, banana (not much, just enough to be evocative), pears, white currants and white cranberries, and yellow pear tomatoes. We used a kirsch as the liquor, eschewing rum because it would overwhelm the delicate flavors.