Christmas cakes and cocktails

The months of November and December each year seems to be the time for dusting off traditions as we start preparing for Christmas. Memories are rekindled by familiar fragrances of spices and glazed fruit. I must admit that the aromas bring with them a sense of warmth that I associate with winter.

Some retail stores have been displaying and advertising Christmas decorations and special deals since September. I am sure that it is not my imagining that it seems to happen earlier and earlier each year. With competing retailers trying to beat the competition by being first with their Christmas fare, one can only wonder where it will end.

Christmas cakes fresh out of the oven

I still love tradition. The Christmas decorations will only come out on the 24^th of December at the end of the Advent season. My first acknowledgement of Christmas is the baking of our Christmas cake. A relatively new personal tradition for me. My mom used to bake them and then my sister after her. Last year, my sister was recovering from surgery and was not able to bake one for us. I decided to try my hand at it and bake one myself. The result was two fairly good cakes, even if I have to say so myself. Last year, I used a recipe that is more than a 100 years old.

Fruit and nut mix with green figs, watermelon and crystallised ginger

This year, I did not have crystalised Seville orange peel from our garden, so I could not make the same cake. Being more confident with my baking skills though, I decided to make a fruitcake with some other homemade ingredients. I had some green fig, and wild watermelon preserves that my sister had made. I decided to add them to this year’s cake to keep it uniquely Towerwater.

On a hot summer’s day, the Towerwater kitchen was filled with wintery aromas. Fruit soaked in brandy, dutched cocoa, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and vanilla. It made me wonder why I am actually baking a cake that is more suited for a colder time of the year when we do not have a lot of fresh fruit around. Here I was, making a cake with dried and preserved fruit when the countryside is offering an abundance of fresh fruit, apricots, peaches, plums and berries. Christmas time in the southern hemisphere really calls for cool refreshing flavours and not heavily spiced rich fruit cakes.

I suppose it is time to add new traditions to the Christmas meal at Towerwater. A meal that will complement the temperature of a hot Karoo summer. Having acknowledged that, I do love fruit cake. Nothing quite says Christmas in the same way and the taste of it speaks of the warmth of family and friendship. A piece of fruit cake with a good cup of Assam tea under the oaks in the afternoon is as good as a cocktail at sundown.

Making the baking strips

The tins ready for the batter

Preparing the tins for the cakes in fact takes longer than preparing the batter. My friend Susan showed me how to make baking strips with aluminium foil and damp paper towels to wrap around the outside of the tin to ensure that the cake bakes evenly. Not faster on the outside than in the centre. With the tins lined with baking paper on the inside and the protective baking strips on the outside, my cakes were finally ready for the oven.

I could clean up the kitchen and join Keith under the big oak with two blue gin and tonics. I love blue cocktails. With Six Dogs blue gin and Fitch and Leeds’s blue tonic, I could double up on the blue for our cocktails. Sitting back with my blue gin and tonic, I could not help noticing how closely the colour of the drink matched the blue Karoo sky.

 

It was like drinking the Karoo sky. Blue, light, refreshing and a complete antithesis to the cake baking in the oven.