Traditional Fruit Cake

The longer this cake aging, the better the taste as the rhum's sipped through the cake and make it more moist.

Every year, each time I bake this cake, I will have to wait until late in the night so I can concentrate on working - specially after having a kid - waiting until everyone's fast asleep, then I can start my uninterrupted work. It usually takes me close to Dawn to finish all the process as per batch could give me up to 6 loaves of fruit cakes.

INGREDIENTS:

- 2 Cup(s) of dried fruit cake mix

- 2 Cup(s) dried pineapple wedges(can be replaced with orange peel if you don't have pineapple wedges)

- 2 Cup(s) red and green dried cherry

- 2 Cup(s) currant or dark raisins

- 1 Cup(s) pitted, dried dates

- 2 Cup(s) mixed of slivered almonds, whole pecans and whole walnuts (don't crush)

- 1 Cup(s) all-purpose flour

- ½ Cup(s) cocoa powder

- ¾ Cup(s) granulated sugar

- ¾ Cup(s) light brown sugar

- ½ Cup(s) butter, melted or softened

- 6 small to medium eggs, or 5 large eggs

- 1 Tsp cinnamon

- 1 Tsp Allspice

- 1 Tsp baking soda

- Brandy or Rhum

DIRECTIONS:

- One or two night ahead, soak all the dried fruit and nuts in a large plastic bowl (not wood, please - as it will absorb the brandy/rhum) with rhum or brandy. Soak deep enough to wet all the mix.

- The next day; heat the oven to 325 degree.

- Line the bread/loaf pans with wax paper neatly.

- Beat the eggs and sugar on high speed (medium-high for stand mixer) until white, then slow the speed.

- Add soft/melted butter while mixing, then slowly add the flour, cocoa, baking soda, spices and salt.

- Turn off the mixer, gently fold in the mixed fruit into the batter. Stir gently.

- Pour into the loaf pans, cover with aluminum foil.

- Bake for 30 minutes on the 325 degree temperature, then reduce the temperature to 300 degree and bake again another 30 minutes and again reduce the temperature to 275 degree, bake for another 30 minutes then reduce the temperature to 250 and bake for one hour or until cooked (when you insert the wire, the batter will not stick to the wire).

- Cool the cakes on the rack. Sprinkle some rhum or brandy to the cake then wrap tightly with cheesecloth or aluminum foil until its ready to be served.

TIP: leaving it aging for few weeks or months is a good option to make it tastier...

Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake

INGREDIENTS:
- 1 ½ cup(s) semisweet chocolate, mini pieces
- 1 tablespoon(s) unsweetened cocoa
- 2 teaspoon(s) ground cinnamon
- 1 2/3 cup(s) sugar
- ¾ cup(s) (1½ sticks) margarine or butter, softened
- 3 cup(s) all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoon(s) baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon(s) baking powder
- 2 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon(s) salt
- 1-16 ounce light sour cream
- 3 large eggs
- 2/3 cup(s) dried red and green cherries

DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour 10-inch Bundt pan.

- In small bowl, combine chocolate mini pieces, cocoa, cinnamon, and 1/3 cup sugar; set aside.

- In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat margarine or butter and 1 1/3 cups sugar until blended. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl.

- Reduce speed to low; add flour, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla extract, salt, sour cream, and eggs; beat until well mixed. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl. Stir in dried cherries.

- Spread one-third of batter in Bundt pan; sprinkle with half the chocolate mixture. Top with half the remaining batter; sprinkle with remaining chocolate mixture. Spread remaining batter on top.
- Bake coffee cake 1 hour and 10 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Invert cake onto wire rack to cool completely.
If you like, sift confectioners' sugar over cake before serving.

Stained Glass Ornament Butter Cookies

For the basic butter cookies dough recipe, follow the link by clicking on the title or here. This one was way cool! I love to see how they turned out. Now, on the Goodhousekeeping's recipe, it asks for hard candy as the filling, but I hate to eat crunchy-crackling-hard candy with a soft-chewy cookie, so I picked gummy bear! The trick is quite different if you're going to use gummy bear;
- Divide the basic butter cookies dough into 3 pieces. Flatten each piece into a disk; wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight, until firm enough to roll.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line large cookie sheet with foil. Between 2 sheets of waxed paper, roll 1 disk of dough 1/8 inch thick. Remove top sheet of waxed paper. With 3 to 4 inch star-shaped cookie cutters, cut out as many cookies as possible. Place 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheet. Cut out centers of cookies with 1 ½ to 2 inch cookie cutters. Remove and refrigerate trimmings and cutout centers.

- Bake cookies until almost cooked. Remove cookie sheet from oven; fill each cookie's center with 2 pieces gummy bear. Return to oven and bake 3 to 4 minutes longer (or until gummy bear is melted). Cool cookies on cookie sheet on wire rack. With metal spatula, remove cookies. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.
- Store cookies in tightly sealed container at room temperature up to 2 weeks or in freezer up to 3 months.

TIPS: if you want to make blended colors, do 2 or 3 different colors gummy bear in one cookie and they'll blend so pretty.