Jamaican Black Cake

Thank you to Nadine who requested a Jamaican Black Cake for the holidays.  This is a traditional holiday dessert which is deliciously, dark and rich and unlike any other fruit cake you will run across.

It is a dense cake soaked with rum and port wine and allowed to sit and ferment for several weeks or months.  It is also served at weddings and special occasions.

Here is the recipe that I used for this delicious cake. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour
8 ounces margarine or butter
8 ounces sugar
4 eggs
1 pound raisins*
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces mixed peel*
4 ounces cherries*
1/2 pound prunes (chopped)
1 cup wine/brandy*
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lime or lemon, finely grated rind only
2 tablespoons browning

Directions:
*I grounded and soaked these ingredients in rum and wine a few weeks in advance.  Kept in a sealed glass jar.

Cream butter, sugar and browning until soft and fluffy. Sieve all dry ingredients together Beat eggs, wine/brandy together. Add egg mixture to creamed butter and sugar. Add fruits. Add flour and fold in. Do no over-beat when mixing. Bake at 350F for 1 1/2 hours. 

This baked an 8 1/2" round. I decorated this cake with royal icing and silver dragees.

Ornamental Cupcakes

I had fun decorating holiday cupcakes.  The flavour?  Lemon and decorated with a buttercream icing.  I posted the recipe in April.  It has a very light tartness which is a nice contrast to the icing.  Check out the pics:

Just poured batter into cupcake cups.

freshly baked!

Time to decorate.

Tada!

You can keep these in an air tight container for up to three days.  ENJOY!

Christmas Cupcakes

Well, what can I say.  I really dropped the ball on posting Halloween themed treats. But I am not one to dwell on the negative.  Let's move on to the next big season.
Christmas!

I baked Devils Food Cupcakes.  This recipe was found at about.com and is by Diane Rattray.

Ingredients:
•3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
•1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
•1 1/4 cups milk, scalded
•2 cups cake flour, sifted or stirred before measuring
•1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
•1 teaspoon salt
•2/3 cup shortening
•3 eggs
•1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation:

Prepare two 1 dozen cupcake trays with cupcake liners. Sift the cocoa with 1/3 cup sugar; pour into the milk gradually; stir until well blended. Set aside to cool. Sift together flour, remaining 1 cup sugar, soda, and salt. Add shortening and half of the cooled cocoa and milk mixture. Beat at medium speed of an electric hand-held mixer. Add eggs, vanilla, and remaining cocoa and milk mixture. Continue beating for about 2 minutes, scraping bowl with a spatula occasionally. Pour into cupcake tray. Bake at 325° for 25 to 30 minutes.Cool and frost devil's food cupcakes as desired.

 

I used icing colors to dye my icing, and my designs were piped using a #2 tip, and smoothed over with a spatula knife.

Chocolate Christmas Candy

I have a potluck at work next week and I have decided to make chocolate treats. There are 32 people in my department, so I decided to economize using Merckens Chocolate melting wafers.
I purchased molds in various Christmas themes. Santa, JOY, Drummer Boy and a Snowman. I bought Merckens Milk Cocoa Lite and Merckens WHITE. I also bought powdered food dye to add colour to my treats.

Merckens candy wafers are very easy to use and do not require tempering. Merckens chocolate wafers are by far the best tasting wafers. They do not have a waxy taste to them. I half way filled a small glass containers with the Merckens white. I added a bit of powdered food dye to each container. One red, one yellow, and one green. I heated up the red container in my microwave oven for 1 minute. Using a spoon I mixed the red wafer, until it became creamy. Using a fine paint brush, I painted various parts of my mold. For example, red on Santa's hat, or red on the snowman's mittens. Once finished with that colour, I melted the yellow wafers and painted, and them moved on to the green. Once my chocolate molds were painted, I filled larger glass containers with the chocolate wafers. One with the Merckens White, and the other with the milk cocoa.
I melted the white first for a minute and a half. And stirred vigorously.
Using a spoon, I filled some of my molds 3/4 full. I followed the same process with the Merckens Cocoa. I filled the balance of my molds the same way. (each mold sheet, has about 12 molds). I tapped the sheet a bit, so the melted chocolate would spread, filling the smallest parts of the molds. I then placed my molds in the refrigerator for about two hours.

You know your chocolate is ready to be popped from their molds when the color of the chocolate has gone from shiney to matte. I tapped my chocolate on to wax paper. and voila!