CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY FRUITCAKE...

"Do you know what chocolate is made of? It is made of cocoa, dense, strong, velvety... abyss, dark, deep, enveloping..." -Fabrizio Caramagna

….I’ve tweaked the original recipe and changed a few ingredients around to make it work better. Absolutely a favourite. You can scatter chocolate chips on top of the batter before baking....the combination of cranberry and chocolate is definitely wonderful.                 

PREHEAT oven to 300 degrees. Line 7 small loaf tins with veggie sprayed parchment paper. 

Basic recipe makes a normal loaf. I TRIPLE this recipe to get 7 small loaf pans, or ONE angel food cake pan.

                                        

I prefer the small loaves as they freeze well.

Easier to do a TRIPLE batch as then you can have the cake on hand...

So here we go.....recipe is as follows........

"Baking a Christmas cake is a work of art that warms the soul..." -Unknown

A GROUP (SOAK the FRUIT)

                1 cup golden raisins, 1 cup dried cranberries, ¼ cup rum  or other,                  1 cup slivered almonds,1 ½ cups choc chips                                      

"Cake, like Christmas, is ALWAYS a good idea..." -Unknown

B GROUP ( Dry ingredients) 1 ½ cups flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp gr ginger

                 ½ tsp baking powder, ¼ tsp baking soda, ¼ tsp nutmeg, ¼ tsp allspice

                                                      

"Other foods are just food. But chocolate is CHOCOLATE..." 

                                                                                                              -Patrick Skene Caitling

 C GROUP: ½ cup plant butter, ¾ cup brown sugar, 3 large eggs, 2 tbsp maple syrup

                    1/3 cocoa mixed into the softened  butter,  ½-3/4 cup orange juice or other

Fold all together with a wooden spoon or spatula till well combined. Divide between pans

Bake in oven till cake tester comes out clean. This may take 40 minutes to 1 hour. You must test cake periodically, and add minutes to baking timer as needed. Wrap well by putting entire small loaf pan with baked Cake into a freezer bag, and label...

"Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves."- Eric Severeid

Photographs 2025

LUCI'S 10,385 KMS BUTTER COOKIES...

          "Our roots will always be tangled..." -Ally Condie

Melt in your mouth butter cookies. Reminds me of whipped shortbread, only different. Can make the dough ahead and freeze in rolls till ready to use.

Recipe from my friend, Luci, 10, 3185 kms in the Phillipines. Her dad’s favourite treat.  Thanks, Luci, for sharing it with me. My NEW favourite Christmas cookie.  When I make them, it seems like she’s right here beside me, both of us munching away…

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cookie sheets with Silpat liners or parchment paper

2 cups flour, 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened, ½ cup sugar

2 egg yolks at room temperature, 2 tsp good vanilla extract

1/3 cup sugar for rolling dough

     "There is magic in long distance friendships..." -Diana Cortes

Lay out all of your ingredients ready to use. Soften butter by leaving out till pliable, or nuke in microwave 10 seconds here and there a little bit.

"Friendship is not something you seek, but something that finds you..."-M.  Mokhonoana

(Room temperature ingredients will blend better together, and be more stable. The baked cookies will have a lovely texture, because trapped air expands during baking, making them more tender with good flavour.)

      "No friendship is an accident..." -O. Henry ( Heart of the West)

Cream butter and sugar till fluffy and light.

Add egg yolks and extract and mix till combined.

Add flour till just mixed, then combine easily into a roll. This is beautiful dough.

Roll in plastic wrap and chill. Can also freeze for a later time.

I left the chilled roll of dough out for about half hour till I could easily scoop the dough. You don't have to roll in sugar, but when baked it gives them this  wonderful , crystallized crunch.

Next time I would do larger scoops, because the dough behaves so well when baking and doesn’t bleed all over.

I baked them about 10 minutes and had to add a couple more minutes till light golden. 

One batch makes  just two cookie sheets of butter cookies. Turn off oven at end and leave the door open a tad and let them dry out about 10 minutes. It makes them crisper.

Then pile onto a plate and gobble them up with a friend. Or just gobble them up on your own! These would be nice with additions like peel, or candied cherries, ginger, dried apricots, etc. 

"True friends are never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart..." -Helen Keller

Photographs 2025

THE GREAT CRANBERRY PUMPKIN ...

"Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?" -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

THE GREAT CANBERRY PUMPKIN LOAF ( 1990-2025)

(Double recipe makes 2 loaf pans, or 11 mini loaf pans. Adjust time accordingly.) The orange juice is optional. Use water instead. Leave out the pureed orange. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Never fails. Freezes well. If there's any of it left to freeze...

FIRST GROUP: 1/3 cup plant butter,1 cup sugar,2 eggs,1 cup canned pumpkin (half of a large tin if you are doubling), 1/3 cup orange juice concentrate or water

1 grated and pureed orange, and scrape another orange for fresh peel.

Beat all FIRST GROUP ingredients, then add ground up orange and peel,  if you are using oranges. 

2ND GROUP: 2 cups  flour,1 tsp baking soda,½ tsp baking powder, Pinch salt, ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp cloves

Add all dry and combine together ( fold)..do not beat, or you will be sorry…gets tough that way.

3RD GROUP:½ cup chopped nuts ( I use pecans or walnuts) If you don't want nuts add extra cranberries and raisins, OR even a handful of chocolate chips. Go crazy. More fun that way.

1 cup dried cranberries/raisins mixed ( I toss in a bit more for good measure)

Plop into pans. The mini loaf pans are great. I used two regular loaf pans, greased and lined with parchment paper. 

"I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one..." -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Bake in 350 oven for 1 hour with larger loaf pans. Bake for about 30 minutes with mini pans. 

Just be sure to check after 20 minutes, with a sharp knife plunged into the centre to test for doneness. If you use a toothpick, you might lose it in the vastness of the loaf...so I use a steak knife. Serve with anything and everything.

Years ago, when we lived in Petawawa,1990, most of the military wives made pumpkin pie, soup, pudding ( yuck). I decided to be really clever and make pumpkin puree from scratch. Oh yeah, that was a good idea. I got the axe from  the basement, and proceeded to hack that huge pumpkin outside. Chopped it up into huge hunks. 

I shoved the hacked up pumpkin (without peeling the skin) , into a stock pot ,and boiled it till it burnt in bottom of the pan. Oh well. I just added water, from time to time, and let it bubble away,for the rest of the day. The pot was too heavy and stringy pumpkin sloshed around. I forgot to take out the seeds as well. So there were seeds drowning in the mess.

Next day I smashed it all up. It was stringy and tough.Oh well. I figured that's how it was supposed to be. Removed seeds. That took all morning. I didn't have a food processor or blender, so just took a potato masher and a knife till it turned into  Pumpkin snot...( hmmm, kind of ewwwww)

Rolled pastry into a pie pan. Mixed the pumpkin globs with tofu, eggs, spices.  It was my "add-tofu-to-everything" phase. 

Strings hung out of the pie shell, so I snipped them off with scissors, squished down the tofu and pumpkin ( I had managed to get some seeds and pumpkin  skin off the pieces by that time). It was a trifle liquid, so I sprinkled extra flour into the mix and stirred. I figured that would thicken it up.( Oh yeah, it was gross).Baked it a good hour and a half. It burned on top and was raw underneath. It kind of looked like stringy pumpkin pudding globs ( ewwwww yuck). Retired pumpkin pie at that point.

HOWEVER! I first tried Cranberry Pumpkin bread years ago, when I went to a violin conference  in Vancouver. The friends I went with brought three HUGE loaves of orange pumpkin bread. They carved up those loaves, slathered fragrant slices with cheese. It was delicious, dripping with cranberries, raisins and walnuts. We sat in the green room of the Orpheum theatre, devouring pumpkin bread, till it was completely gone, and it was time to go on stage and play. Every time I make it, I remember that wonderful night where we performed Bach and Vivaldi, ate pumpkin bread, and laughed and reveled in that sweet, pungent scent of cinnamon and cloves. 

 "There he is. There he is. It's The GREAT Pumpkin!"

                                                                              -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Photographs 2025 Printed recipe from "Company's Coming" Muffins and More  by Jean Pare. My go to, for years! I like to switch it up, especially at xmas. I add more fruit and use it as a fruitcake.