Nanna Cannon's Christmas Cake Recipe

One of my recollections of Christmas growing up as a child in Australia is of the Christmas fruit cakes that my Great Grandmother would make. They came home wrapped in tin foil and would last long after Christmas had passed. The cake was so sweet and rich that we would slather it with margarine.

In recognition of the Christmas season, here is Nanna Cannon's Christmas Cake Recipe, exactly as it is written in her handwriting in the Recipe Book that I am lucky to have (and previously wrote about here).

Xmas Cake
In large saucepan,

500g mixed fruits
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/4 lb margarine
1 tablespoon golden syrup

Bring to boil.
Remove from stove.
Add & stir in

1 teaspoon carb-soda.

Cool.
Pour into mixing bowl.

Add 2 beaten eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour.

Mix well. Pour into prepared cake tin.
Oven on 250 for 2 1/2 hours.
Do not open oven door, before 1 1/2 hours, while cake is cooking.
Leave cake stand 3 days before cutting.

My Notes:

500 grams of mixed fruit is roughly 2 cups
1/4 pound of margarine is 1/2 cup
carb soda is baking soda

The cake comes pretty close to resembling this, although I remember it as being darker and filled with both green and red fruit bits:

Image: Randy Son Of Robert

Are there any special recipes in your family that are only brought out for the holidays?

Thrown together soup

Last night I threw together a soup with some pantry and freezer items. I'm trying to cook more with the food we have in the house, since it's already been paid for!

2 cans of mushroom soup

2 chicken breasts (cut in to small pieces and cooked with Mrs Dash herb and garlic spices)

A few pinches of epicure chicken stock

Some splashes of milk

Some leftover everyday style mixed sundried tomato dip

Some leftover and chopped rotini pasta

1-2 cups of thawed and chopped mixed vegetables

Shredded cheese

Four frozen cubes of avocado (melted in the pot)

I think I went a little bit too heavy on the chicken stock, it sure was flavoursome! I served myself in one of my brand new everyday style mugs. These mugs are the perfect size for a wonderful hot chocolate, and as it turns out, a nice big cup of soup too. For the finishing touch I added a sprinkling of shredded cheese on top and a piece of buttered toast for dipping.

Triple Chocolate Muffins

Yesterday I whipped up a batch of these chocolate muffins, thus bringing to life my fifth revision of the recipe. They are pretty yummy now, but as with everything in life there is always room for improvement!

Triple Chocolate Muffins (Makes 6-12*)

Ingredients

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup baking butter

2 eggs

3/4 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sour cream

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cocoa

1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Spray the muffin tray with cooking spray.
2. Melt the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 1/3 cup of butter together in a small saucepan over low heat, mixing regularly. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
3. In a small bowl lightly beat the eggs. To the eggs add the chocolate-butter mixture and mix with milk, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla until well combined.
4. In a large bowl, stir together flour, soda, salt and cocoa. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients, add wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Stir in the remaining cup of chocolate chips. Spoon batter in to the muffin tray.
5. Bake at 400F for 20 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove muffin tray from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before placing muffins on a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or cooled.

*Yesterday the batch I made was 10 small-regular sized muffins. You could probably make 6 large muffins and bake them for an additional 5 minutes, or make 12 small muffins and bake them for 15-20 minutes. Just remember the smaller the muffin the less cooking time, and vice versa.I like to convert my bread and muffin recipes to mini-muffins as they are a great snack size for kids, and the cooking time for them is significantly less.

My preference is to eat the muffins fresh out of the oven while the chocolate is all melted, or to reheat them in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. I do the majority of my baking using whole-wheat flour, which hardly makes up for the pure chocolate wickedness of this recipe but I thought it was worth mentioning. ;)

I would LOVE to hear if you try my recipe and any suggestions or changes that you made!

P.S. I will still hopefully find the time to share my design dilemma with you, if not today then definitely tomorrow.

Something Old: Nanna Cannon's Recipe Book

When I moved to Canada in early 2004, I left behind in Australia all of my worldly possessions except for the clothing I brought with me. In December 2007 I received all the boxes of the things I'd packed almost 4 years before. I was roughly 37 weeks pregnant with Desana so unpacking boxes wasn't at the top of my priority list. Now after the birth of my second child I'm finally getting around to really unpacking and looking through everything.

My rule is to look at and deal with just one box at a time, that way it (hopefully) won't become too overwhelming. It is amazing the things you forget about when you haven't seen them in over 6 years. It is amazing how much the sentimental part of me tries to cling on to those things despite my inability to remember their significance or who gave them to me.

The last box I sorted through was a book box. Lots of books from my childhood and teenage years. I had a very difficult time sorting through it because on the one hand, these were books that I loved enough to decide to keep when I packed everything up and sold the rest. On the other hand I don't remember most of the plots and can't see myself re-reading them since I've decided life is too short to waste on bad books. What to do, what to do...

I did find a few treasures, one a published recipe book filled with many of the foods I grew up eating (and haven't had in years since they aren't made in Canada) and the other a handwritten recipe book by my Great Grandmother, Nanna Cannon. For the first five or so years of my life my Great Grandparents were living in Tamworth (which is, I believe where both my Grandmother and my Mum were born).

I have quite a few mental snapshots of memories of the time we spent in Tamworth when I was about five years old. I remember sheep on a hill that we saw from the train. I remember finding the skull of some animal in a tree in the backyard of my Great Grandparent's house and that being the first time someone told me 'you never see cats skeletons in trees'. I remember looking at some toys at a corner store and wanting to stay and play with the little girl whose parents ran the shop. I remember all the beautiful trees with autumn colors, something that you don't see too often where I'm from. I remember playing on one of those spinning playground toys (what are those called?) in the same park with the trees. I remember playing in a water fountain, climbing up on the kitchen counter to reach the container with licorice in it (that's where my love of licorice came from), watching sesame street on the small tv on top of the piano that they would later give to us.

circa. 1989 (I'm the one in PINK!)

Isn't it funny the things we remember and the things we forget?

Nanna Cannon's Recipe Book is full of fairly simple recipes and lots of thrifty tips, many of which make me smile.

I have no idea when she would have written everything that is in this little book as there are no dates any where.

You have to admit it is a lovely keepsake. The idea of making some of these recipes for my girls just makes me smile. I'm sure Nanna Cannon would be so pleased.

Here are a few little things from the book for your perusal.

Cough Mixture

In saucepan   1 cup cider-vinegar

1 1/2 cups honey

Juice of 3 large lemons

Heat, stir till dissolved. Cool. Bottle. Use as required.

Home-Made Chicken Soup

One dozen chicken wings

2 large carrots

1 large parsnip

2 larger onions

celery, beans, peas

Cover with water, bring to boil. Cook 1/2 hour.

Add 3 packets chicken-noodle soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

Cook further 20 minutes. Serve.

Melting Moment Biscuits

Cream together 1/2 cup margaine & 1/3 cup icing sugar

Add                    1/2 cup self-raising flour

1/2 cup cornflour

Bake 12 minutes

• Paint men's old boots, with enamel paint. Fill with soil. Useful plant-pot.
• Vaseline keeps eyebrows in line.
• New floral tea-towels make attractive cushion covers.
• Screw tops of screw-top-jars under cupboard shelves. Jars can be used for all small items, to be kept tidy.
• Left-over wallpaper makes attractive hard covers for books. Cover over with plastic.
• Soapy washing water, is good to toss over citrus trees. Helps to wash the bugs away.
• Water is a good cheap window cleaner. Use with newspaper, dry with newspaper.
• Keep broken biscuits separate from the others. When children visit, they enjoy a tin of broken-biscuits.
• Cardboard box, covered with contact or wall-paper, is useful under child's bed, for toys, or shoes.

Aren't those some neat tips? Now I'm off to find some vaseline...hah!

Ask and you will receive

Ask and you will receive. At least that seems to be the case with my recent glass bottle obsession! I showed you these little bottles in my Repurposed baby food jars post:

Now I have a few more gorgeous little bottles. On Saturday afternoon my friend and her little girl came over for a visit and she coaxed us out of the house for a walk. The 'big' girls got the double stroller and Freya fell asleep almost instantly in the Ergo as seems to be the usual. We spotted a giant yard sale sign so decided to go check it out. For $1.25 I scored 6 of these little bottles...

and this one large decorative bottle...

My friend kept two of the small bottles (though I may give her one more as odd numbers are better in decorating than even!). I haven't decided what I'm going to do with mine yet. I asked the lady who was selling them and she said they were spice bottles. They have such beautiful stoppers I don't know if I should put water and flowers in them, with the stopper left off but next to the bottle. Who knows! Not bad for $1.25 though.

You have probably been a little distracted by the big green fellow in the background of the above pictures. His name is Toby the Toad, and he is a cookie jar! My sister bought him when she was living with us for a year after Desana was born, along with some of the other Toby the Toad items. I accidentally chipped him one day so she let us keep him. I owe her a cookie jar. :)

Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies

I was after something quick and easy to snack on, including oatmeal which is known for increasing your milk supply. Now I'm bordering on an over supply, which is great, so I guess it works! My Mum's boyfriend shared this recipe with me.

Here it is. My changes are at the bottom.

Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Ingredients

½ cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
6 tablespoons milk
1 ½ cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups rolled oats
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200C/400F
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in eggs and milk.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
Stir oats into flour mixture.
Combine dry mixture into wet mixture.
Add vanilla and chocolate chips.
Drop spoonfuls onto baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes.

My changes: I only use 1 cup of chocolate chips and I bake on the top row in my oven for only 10 minutes. I let them sit on the tray for 1 more minute, then transfer to a cooling rack to harden up a little. This batch made 30, but it all depends on what size cookies you like. :)