Sweet Eats :: Martha's December Fuitcake

Happy New Year!

Nicky & I capped off 2006 with a week at the beach... filled with jam making, beach cricket, fishing and making the final cake of the "Martha Stewart "Year of Cakes" challenge"! I say final, but as we missed last month's installment we will give the November cakes a whirl in Jan.

With only 2 days left to go in our holiday we decided we had better brush off the sand and get off the couch and make some Christmas goodies. The boys put on some DVDs ...and we got out our ingredients.


There were some of the usual suspects, butter, butter & butter! And some more unusual for a fruitcake, like dried pineapple & pears. We also substituted the Armagnac for cognac and a slosh of rum.... as this was a bit more in budget!

The cake was so easy to make... and when it emerged from the oven it was beautifully golden and smelt of warm alcohol & fruit. I am salivating now. It is a great recipe for a quick fruit cake... if you should ever need one! The cake needed to cool... so lucky us, we headed off to the beach, swam and inspected the rock pools. I have never done that before!


Decorating the cake was the best bit! Neither of us have used "plastic" icing before... I usually pick it off wedding cake as it is so sweeeet! But I understand why people like it... it is really easy to use as long as you use a bit of corn starch/flour.

After a close inspection of our cookie cutters we decided against the snow flakes in favour for a more summery Australian Christmas star-capped effect.

To see Martha's version click "here."

And here is ours on holidays with the blue ocean views sparkling away.

Wishing you all sweetness for 2007! T

P.S Martha says the cake last up to 2 days. This is about right as it was juicy, moist and flavourful... but it became dry and the flavour disappeared. So eat it all up as soon as you can!