Tag Archives: cake

Nativity Cake

Christmas, family, food and cooking,

When our first two children were very little, I wanted to establish some God-honoring traditions for Christmastime. I didn’t think that the traditions of our parents were focused enough on the Nativity of Christ.

As an example, no one in our Protestant circles, even we who believed in the reality of the Christmas story, went to church on Christmas Day, and we missed a big opportunity to teach our children, and to know God, by praxis. It’s too bad, however it happened, that the tradition of not worshiping and communing on Christmas got started.

In any case, lacking a Christmas Day church tradition, we were on our own. I wanted the children to have more than a Christmas tree and presents, and one thing I contrived was a birthday cake for Jesus. It should be some special kind of cake that we would never eat any other time of year.

I found a recipe in Sunset Magazine for Dried Fruit Loaves, and as I scanned the ingredients list I reasoned, from my young-marrieds-on-a-shoestring perspective, that only Christmas extravagance would make me willing to invest in that amount of dried fruit and nuts.

So I’ve been adapting it and baking it without fail for about 38 years. Most years I made four times the original recipe and gave away various sizes of loaves. There is very little to it besides the fruit and nuts, and everyone still loves to slice a thin piece or two for a wholesome snack, all through the Twelve Days of Christmas or however long the bread lasts.

We don’t usually sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus anymore. All those children grew up and are teaching their own children about Christ’s Incarnation, and I’m not often with them to light a candle on the cake. But some of us now have the joyous tradition of going to church on Christmas Day.

I was just remarking to my husband that I could even stop including the bread in my baking projects…but it’s not difficult to make, so I don’t know why I even consider that. I guess because it’s more fun to try new things.

When I searched online for this recipe, I found something a bit different from Sunset under the name Western Dried Fruits Cake. It contains raisins, which I think too common for the occasion, and judging from the only picture I saw, and the recipe ingredients, mine is much better all around.

One of my friends makes this and calls it California Fruitcake. When I search with that term I come up with something much more like our favorite, also with credit given to Sunset: California Fruitcake.

The last two years I have decreased the amount of my recipe, for some reason to one-third of the quadruple-batch, but for your convenience I will post here something close to the original version. And how about a Christmasy name as well:

CALIFORNIA NATIVITY CAKE

2 cups flour (I’ve used part whole-wheat)
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups lightly packed dried fruit. I like to use half dried apples, and the remainder dried apricots and dates, sometimes with some pears or figs in the mix. Cut the larger pieces of fruit into 1″ pieces.
3 cups whole nuts. Usually our cake is heavy on the almonds, lately with some pecans as well.
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup water

Prepare six mini loaf pans or fewer larger pans by greasing and lining at least the bottoms with parchment paper. Stir the dry ingredients together and mix about 1/2 cup of this mixture with the fruit and nuts. While mixing I often stuff an almond into each date. Stir the eggs, vanilla, and water together and blend with the flour mixture, then add the fruit and nuts.

Spoon into the prepared pans, and if you want to minimize the rockiness of the terrain of the finished loaves’ tops, use your spoon to push pointy edges of apple down into the sticky dough. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 75 minutes depending on the size of pan, or until well browned. I usually have to put some foil over the top of large loaves after an hour.

Let cool on a rack for about 10 minutes before turning out on to racks. Pull off the paper and let cool thoroughly. Wrap loaves airtight and refrigerate or freeze for at least a few days before serving. Aged loaves can be cut in thin slices.

The wind blows warm.

food and cooking, my garden, nature, , ,

The wind has been blowing balmy air into and around the house these days, but I’ve enjoyed some cool walks in the early mornings. Somehow this year the autumn atmosphere is calling me outdoors and I’m actually hearing, feeling the pull. I want to soak up whatever it is in the air while I can, before I get all wimpy and chilly all the time and just want to sit by the fire.

On the subject of fires, this warm wind has fanned the flames of a wildfire in one of our favorite nearby parks — eek! Mr. Glad and I saw the smoke from our front yard where we were working on the lawn and flower bed. Thank God, it was put out fairly quickly and burned less than 200 acres, of vegetation only.

In preparation for the controlled indoor fires I’m anticipating, my husband and I had just finished moving a half cord of firewood from our driveway, to stack in the side yard. My own method of carrying wood involves loading several pieces on my left arm, which was bare on this warm day, and right off was getting a bit roughed up.

I dug around in the rag drawer and contrived an arm protector from a section of worn-out sock. I’m showing you two pictures so you will be sure to see how clever I am.

Two logs loaded on….


Mr. Glad showed me a concave piece of bark that fell off a knobby oak log, and we admired the design of its inner side, one bit of art work that must be representative of gazillions of other lovely bark designs that no one ever sees. Then I made it our computer desktop background.

I’ve had to interrupt my outdoor reveries to cook up some of the bounteous harvest. Old friends hosted a women’s potluck and that offered me the chance to try out a new cake on the other ladies.

When I defrosted the freezer last week I had found various flours that I want to use up, and Mr. C. dropped off a bag of Golden Delicious apples, so I tried this buckwheat apple cake. Everyone loved it, and took home what was left over, except for the slice I saved for Mr. Glad.

The recipe calls for so many apples (six), that they completely solve the problem of buckwheat being a dry sort of flour. It was not overly sweet, and would be a good sort of cake for people who like to eat cake often. I used limoncello instead of the maraschino liqueur. I don’t understand how the cake on the original blog came out so pale. It’s as though the cook used refined buckwheat flour, which I’ve never heard of.

For the potluck lunch I also made a big bowl of tabouli, my method long ago adapted from a Sunset Magazine recipe called Bulgur Salad. Next summer I’ll share it. I was able to use parsley, mint, and tomatoes from our garden. I forgot to take a picture until after I’d stirred in some tuna to make half of the batch into a main dish salad for Mr. Glad.

Back out in the garden again, I’ve been deeply digging to break up the clay for planting some ranunculus bulbs and pansies where a shrub used to be. Some of its big roots were still hanging around and for the first time in my life I used a chopping maul to get them out of there. That was satisfying work.

One of the jobs on my autumn to-do list was to take out the Cécile Brunner rose in the far corner of the yard. This picture shows it four years ago, before it became a burden that is more trouble than it is worth.

I never thought I would say that about such a lovely rose bush, but this one is so vigorous, and vigorously invading three neighbors’ yards, that it requires hours of pruning three times a year, from which I come away scratched and bleeding, and wishing I could have done something else with the time. The bush is in a place where we don’t even properly appreciate its enthusiastic blooming.

I forgot that it likes to bloom in October, until my glance landed in its corner yesterday. It won’t do to whack it down in its glory, so I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks before I tackle the job. I will sadly remove one more rosebush from my life, trying to live with the reality of my limitations. In the meantime, I cut some stems to make one last bouquet.

Philosophy of Pie and Picnics

family, food and cooking, history, , , ,
Vegan Coconut Pie

Between tonight and tomorrow this subject must become theoretical, as Monday my church begins fasting in preparation for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Though I admit to making vegan desserts, like this coconut pie for Father L.’s birthday, usually I’d rather just wait until a fast-free day to enjoy the butter and cream. Hey, by then I’m happy to pour cream in my coffee and call it dessert.

But that’s not festive enough for a picnic, or for a tea party. I think both of those events demand some cake, if they are going to be traditional (in addition to the scones, if you want those). Sadly, our family is generally lacking in cakes, with the major exception of Pearl, who learned on her own and makes lovely ones. I don’t think her household lacks cake; I don’t know anything about their picnics.

The rest of us, going back a couple of generations and on both sides of the family, eat pie. One of us even declared, “Cakes are for looking at.”

I can’t grant that much myself, because my very few attempts at cake decorating beyond the sprinkling of some coarse sugar did not draw any comments about prettiness. My favorite topping for children’s birthday cakes of long ago was an array of gumdrops — but with that we start slipping into the candy category.

It may have been Big Sister Pearl who baked this birthday cake for Soldier, using plenty of that ingredient that is so important. I can see something in his expression that hints at what he would do 20 years down the road: leave cake out of his wedding altogether, in preference for pie.

I blame bloggers for giving me the feeling that something is missing. Have you noticed how many blog posts have been written about this or that recipe for cake, which comes out of the oven in the late morning or afternoon just in time to have a slice with some tea, at the kitchen table with the children just home from school, or just taking a break from homeschool?

Proof that I baked a cake

It’s not clear how I would work that tradition into my lifestyle at this point. My husband would be alarmed and reluctant, to put a good spin on it, and might not eat any cake. I’m considering reviving my Girlfriends Tea Parties just so I can make a cake or two. When I did this before it was a great way to try out a few of the hundreds of dessert recipes I have in my collection. After we sampled them together, all the ladies took home most of the leftovers to share with their sweeter-toothed husbands.

One huge advantage to packing the cake into a basket instead, to be eaten on a blanket spread under a tree, is that I wouldn’t have to clean the house beforehand. But the Old English style of picnicking has also not caught on in the Glad Tribe. Our group has favored throwing handfuls of trail mix into their mouths so that they can get to the mountain peak and back before dark. None of this leisurely sitting around eating and fattening up.

But I have a new desire to broaden our style in that regard, too, probably from reading too many blog posts about Wind in the Willows and grown-up girls taking their Toad and Mole dolls on outings with yummy noshables.

It’s good that I will have a few weeks to think about these important questions — or rather, not to think about them. And by then I’ll be too busy getting ready for a new grandchild, and getting ready for a trip…Then there will be another fast, and then another new grandchild. All these ideas for events that require a Lot of Planning really don’t fit in this summer.

But it won’t take long to throw together a pie to set before my dear husband, a blackberry or cherry would suit just fine, and leftovers won’t be a problem.