The Fruitcake Soundtrack, a new tradition

I'm glad so many of you read my last post, the only thing that disappoints me is that usually something dangerous or tragic has to have occurred to get more readers!  Some of my more everyday life blogs are better written and frankly funnier than the, "OOOOh jeez, she fell through the ceiling but didn't hit the concrete floor!" or "the chicken coop burnt down" posts.  I can see why, "If it bleeds, it leads." became the standard for local news stories.

Mostly, suburban life is pretty mundane...so I guess I'll have to spice it up a bit.  I had planned on writing a blog on making fruit cakes using my grandmother's recipe a few days back, but ended up relating my gravitational/deconstruction issue, so now back to the fruitcake with a few (true) details to spice it up.

This is the second year that I am making Mimi's fruitcakes.  Many thanks to the two friends who lent me vat sized bowls to accomplish the task. I need to get them back to you very soon, I miss my counter space very much.

First the sound track, I hooked my tablet up to the speaker system and told it to play songs randomly and turned the volume up just a little too loud. Be sure to click on the youtube links and have the volume up, so that you get the true feel of the mood while I was at least the third generation preparing the family's fruitcakes. The tablet could have played anything from Mozart to folk to pop to punk and this is what it chose to set the mood for this traditional activity:

First I gathered all of the ingredients to An A Bomb in Wardour Street by The Jam.  I chopped up the dried fruit into smaller bits, dumped all of it into a bowl to macerate with orange juice stirring to the tune of Sunday Morning by No Doubt

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next for the eight eggs from my crazy chickens, cracked to the tune of  Broken by Jack Johnson.  (I didn't plan that, it just happened)  Creaming the pound of margarine (a recipe change due to a milk allergy) and sugar into a mush with a wooden spoon, then once the chunks were small enough switched to a whisk to Supervixen by Garbage, it took a bit of work, so it led into Dangerous by Depeche Mode. At this point, I really started paying attention to what music was playing, after all someday my daughter might want to participate in the family tradition and she'll need to do it properly. I may have snorted when I laughed.

 

 I stirred up a cloud of flour, baking powder, and salt and alternately added that and almond milk to the  egg mixture to E-Pro by Beck. 

 

 

 

 

 

I finished up that song while pouring the bowl of fruit and nuts into the wet ingredients. 

 

 

Cleaned it up a bit for the photo!

Then, I crashed the Pyrex dishes around in the cupboard to get the right loaf pans lined them and  smeared them with margarine and made a total mess to Building a Mystery Sarah Mclachlan. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I filled the dishes and put them in the oven to Stand Down Margaret by The (English) Beat.

 

Mimi would have had one of her headaches. 

 

When they were thoroughly cooled I poured a little something on them that Mimi didn't write into her recipe, but we know she used and wrapped them.  I'll open them periodically between now and the holidays to check on them and moisten them a bit more. 

A friend gave me Emily's Dickinson's Black Fruit Cake recipe, it looks interesting, especially since all of the fruit is just dried, not psychedelically colored in a factory.  Maybe that one will have a sound track too!