December cooking

I can't tell you how happy I am to be back on line again! In the past month since my online life was wiped out from under neath my fingertips I have kept up the kitchen frenzy in hopes of getting back to blogging before Chrissy was done and dusted.
I have learnt how to take photos on my iphone and have now downloaded them to our newly bolted down computer, so it is with great pleasure I bring you a photo update of my cooking festivities. Please note that the pictures are not that great but bare with me and they will get better -- I promise!
Ok so where do I start???? Oh, it must be with the good old Christmas cake, a favourite of Nic's. I will admit it was never something I looked forward to as the Holiday season approached, however, since being married to Nic I have come to love it.
 My favourite version comes from my wonderful friend Wendy who was making her Christmas cake one cool day in Lexington, VA this time a year (or was it two?) back. The smell was intoxicating and I just had to jump the fence to see what she was up to. When she told me I think I said something along the lines of 'Oh that's nice.....I can't stand glacé cherries', with that she answered 'me too!' I quickly asked for the recipe, bought the 5 tonnes of dried fruit needed for it and proceeded my yearly tradition of a Christmas cake -- something Nic is very happy with.
This year I decided to give in to my husband's request and popped on some multi coloured glacé cherries (the boys seem to have the same love for the awful, sweet yet sour little balls of yuck!), I thought if I only pop them on the top layer then I am sure to see them before I take a bite.....so far I have only bitten into two of them, two too many so guess who isn't putting them in next years cake!
Anyway to cut a long story short, cakes were made and then the boys helped me decorate them with royal icing, they managed to get green and red food colouring all over my wooden chopping board (I almost have it out) and then Alex suggested we call it a December cake because we are eating it before Christmas so it is silly to call it a Christmas cake.
Trust Alex to put that much thought into it, so as of December 09 the Bakers will now refer to it as December cake. Not that he eats it, Alex licks off the icing, sucks on the cherries and leaves the brandy soaked fruit on his plate which does nothing for mum and dad's waist line!
Well that is the story of our Christmas/December cake, I was going to fill you in on the honeycomb, Swedish lollies and rocky-road but I think I should save something for tomorrow.

It is fabulous to be back online and I wish you all HAPPY HOLIDAYS!