The Making Of The Christmas Cake - Part 4
Spicing things up - Cardamoms, Nutmeg, Cloves and Cinnamon take center stage, with a bit of booze and honey!
Smell, odour, fragrance, aroma all mean, in essence, the same thing and that is the information transmitted by your olfactory system to your brain. Nothing could describe the aromas' in the kitchen today except the word bouquet. It was nothing short of magical.
The cardamom seeds
The cardamoms were lightly smashed and popped open and the seeds were collected.
Cloves
Fresh Cinnamon
The pestle and mortar brought into service to pound the spices into a powder
Missing from this picture - the Nutmeg
The Nutmeg is grated straight into the mix - if the bouquet is right, the recipe is right!
And that was the 'dry' part of the mix...
No, that is not a whisky - it's Cherry Brandy, packaged well beyond its station.
One of the few shots where I couldn't escape showing the branding - sorry for that! What you're looking at is two bottles Vanilla, one of Rose Water and one of Almond. Two sherry glasses of Honey and a wine glasses (and a bit for good luck!) of Cherry Brandy.
Hey there, gorgeous! Everything we're done till now, waiting for the spice and the essences...
The Honey...
and the Cherry Brandy goes in.
This year, we experimented - we mixed the cake with a salad spoon and fork. The reason for this is because the we have always used our hand for this - but that inevitably leads to the fruits and preserves getting a bit mushy, leading to the mushy cake. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe we could do better. This year we're in the quest for a firmer cake!
And now the wait begins...
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Comments (6)
Wow, that mix of dried fruit with the liquor and spices looks so good! 😍
It "smells" even better! It is one of the key aromas of the Christmas Season.
I imagine 😍