Though I am sure that I have had Christmas fruit cake before I did not really remember it. Given that and the controversy around fruit cake when I saw some posts about Christmas cake I knew that I would have to try making one to find out. All of the recipes that I saw called for making the cake a few weeks ahead of time to let it mature. Many of the recipes called for "feeding" the cake brandy on a regular basis while it matured. I did not want my cake to end up being too heavy with brandy so I decided to just soak the fruits in some brandy and then I wrapped the cake in cheese cloth that was soaked in brandy while it matured. Some of the recipes that I came across called for adding a layer of marzipan and a layer of icing but I wanted to keep my fruit cake nice and simple so I skipped the frosting layers. After waiting for over a month I finally unwrapped the fruit cake to try today. I am not really sure why fruit cakes have such a bad wrap as this fruit cake was really good. It was nice and moist and full flavor! The cake had a hint of booze without being overwhelmed by it. I think that I will be making a Christmas fruit cake again next year.

Ingredients:
1 cup currants
1 cup mixed candied peel
3/4 cup candied pineapple (chopped)
3/4 cup red candied cherries (halved)
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup brandy
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 pinch of salt
6 tablespoons butter (softened)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons strawberry jam
1 tablespoon molasses
3 eggs
3/4 cups walnuts (chopped)

Directions:
1. Mix the currants, mixed peel, pineapple, cherries, raisins and the brandy in a bowl, cover and let sit for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a bowl.
3. Mix 1/4 cup of the dry mixture into the wet mixture.
4. Mix the butter, sugar, jam and molasses in a bowl.
5. Mix the eggs into the butter mixture one at a time.
6. Mix the remaining flour mixture into the butter and egg mixture.
7. Mix in the fruit mixture along with the nuts.
8. Pour the mixture into baking pans lined with double parchment paper.
9. Place a baking pan with water on the lower rack of the oven.
10. Cover the cake pans with foil and bake on the middle racks of a preheated 300F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean, about 45-60 minutes.
11. Let cool.
12. Soak some cheese cloth in some brandy and wrap it around the cake.
13. Wrap the cake in foil and refrigerate for 30 days.

I had been seeing a few lemon yogurt cakes around that looked good and I was thinking that the rest of my meyer lemons would go well in one. Recently I have been trying to clear some space in my freezer and I came across some blueberries that I had frozen in the summer. I really like the lemon and blueberry flavor combo and I could not resist adding the blueberries to the lemon yogurt cake. With he cake down the only thing that was left was the topping. I was thinking about going with a simple lemon glaze when I came across a bookmark for a lemon blueberry cake with a limoncello glaze on Dragon's Kitchen that sounded great! The lemon yogurt cake with blueberries was really easy to make, though it took a bit longer than I expected. (I think that was because I used still frozen blueberries.) The toothpick test worked and the cake came out perfectly baked even though it took a little longer. The cake was nice and light fluffy and moist and infused with blueberry and lemony goodness! The limoncello added a really nice zing to the lemon glaze that finished the cake off nicely. I think that I will be having this cake for breakfasts for the rest of the week and I am certainly looking forward to them.

Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread

 Pumpkins are in season and really cheap right now so I have a few of them on hand just waiting to be used. When I recently came across this recipe for a pumpkin caramel cheesecake bread on Culinary Concoctions by Peabody I knew exactly what I would be using one of those pumpkins for. How could I resist making this? With pumpkin, caramel and cheesecake all rolled up into one there was no way that I could. I pretty much just used the recipe as it was, though I cut back on some of the sugar and replaced half of the flour with whole wheat flour. One of the things that I really like about quick breads is that they are so easy to make. You pretty much just mix all of the ingredients ahttp://world-supper-recipes.blogspot.com/nd then bake it. This quick bread had the added step of mixing the cheesecake filling but it was still really easy to make. While the bread was baking my apartment was filled with an amazing pumpkin and caramel aroma and by the time that it was done I could barley wait for it to cool to try it. The pumpkin caramel cheesecake turtle bread was so good! The cheesecake layer helped keep the bread nice and moist and it went really well in the bread. The caramel and pumpkin flavor combo was simply amazing and of course it never hurts to add chocolate and pecans. I certainly am looking forward to having this for breakfasts this week!

Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread

(makes 1 loaf)


Directions:
1. Mix the flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
2. Mix the pumpkin, vanilla, oil, eggs and sugars in another bowl.
3. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
4. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, syrup, caramel, egg and flour in a bowl.
5. Pour half of the pumpkin bread mixture into a loaf pan followed by the caramel cheesecake mixture and the remaining pumpkin bread mixture.
6. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean, about 60 minutes.
7. Let cool and then pour on the caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and pecans.