Happy Christmas Baking

Fruitcake - check!
Plum pudding - check!
Mincemeat - check!

Yay! Finally I've got all the christmas desserts made, before Christmas! Actually, not really all of them "in time" per se - the fruitcake needs to age about two more weeks after christmas, and the mincemeat I'll be bottling later tonight and it needs a month - but the plum pudding is ready for Saturday's "do!"

Many thanks to my cousin C who got me the suet for the pudding and mincemeat! And Beautiful Daughter requested I send her some fruitcake, which totally made my month! And this particular fruitcake is one of the best I've ever made - the bits I scraped off the pan told me that! Moist and full of flavour, even before the "rapid ageing process" (add more booze!)

Cousin C's husband G is to be thanked for giving us the bottles he received in his travelling days. He doesn't drink. But my fruitcake will bite you back because of his stash! The rum is sipping rum - even I can sip it straight. Oh, I can hardly wait!

Now, I've done plum pudding before, but this is the very first year I've ever made mincemeat from scratch. I've been looking at that recipe since I married my first husband when I was 21 years old and got "The Canadian Cookbook" as a wedding present. That cookbook and I have come a long way, as evidenced by the page here with the recipe for date squares!

Anyway, I have to go on the internet and look up the origins of mincemeat, because it starts with a pound of ground beef.

Yes, those tasty little tarts you've been gobbling up at christmas are made with meat, real meat!

And suet, which is fat from around the kidneys of a cow. Bear with me - it has a particular melting point and a particular texture that differentiates it from fat from other areas of the cow's body.

What's got me wondering is, how did the first batch get made? I mean, what was the inspiration for putting sugar, currants, raisins, molasses, spices and cider vinegar in with meat and fat? It had to be some way of preserving the meat: fat, sugar and vinegar are all preservatives. But it makes me wonder, historically, the reasoning behind this dish.

Well anyway, when it's finished simmering in a few more hours, I add the brandy. Then it gets packed into sterilized mason jars and has to age for a month.

So I'll keep you posted as to the flavour and texture of home-made mincemeat! And Merry Christmas to y'all - I probably won't be able to blog till 2015.