Lili Marlene's Christmas Boiled Fruit Cake with Brandy

This recipe is largely based on the Boiled Whisky Fruit Cake on page 218 of Margaret Fulton's Creative Cookery Course, published by Octopus Books Pty Ltd in 1981. This is a different recipe from the Boiled Whisky Fruit Cake published in a recent book by Margaret Fulton of Christmas recipes. I believe that the characteristic smell of Christmas baking is primarily made up of a combination of the smells of brandy and cloves.
Lili Marlene's Christmas Boiled Fruit Cake with Brandy 750g mixed dried fruit (including mixed peel)
185g butter

¾ cup water

1 ¼ cups firmly packed brown sugar

¼ cup brandy and ½ cup brandy for sprinkling on cake when cooked

3 large eggs

1 cup plain flour

1 ½ cups self-raising flour

½ teaspoon bicarb of soda

½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon nutmeg

(optional) blanched whole almonds and halved glace cherries for decorating

Grease and line with greased brown paper a very deep 20cm cake tin (made specifically for fruit cakes). Set the oven at a low to moderate heat (170-180C or less for fan-forced). You could use a larger tin, or bake two smaller cakes with less cooking time.

In a really large saucepan place the fruit, water, butter and brown sugar. Bring to boil slowly while stirring, then boil a couple of minutes. Leave it to cool till lukewarm (this may take some time, you may wish to speed up the process by sitting the lidded saucepan in cold shallow water).

Stir in the brandy with a wooden spoon, then mix in the eggs one at a time. Beat well with spoon. Sift all of the remaining dry ingredients together then stir it into the mixture. Mix well.

Place mixture in the prepared tin. Before baking decorate the top of the cake with blanched almonds and cherries arranged in a pretty pattern. If you only have unblanched almonds - just put them in hot water for a minute or two, drain and leave to cool, and the almond skins will come off easily. If you wish to ice the cake omit this stage. Traditional Christmas cake icing is a layer of marzipan covered in white royal icing made with egg whites.

Bake for 45 minutes, then reduce heat to around 160C and cook for a further 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake. Leave the cake to cool for a couple of minutes. Turn out carefully onto a wire rack. Remove the paper with care. Turn right side up. Sprinkle or brush cake with around ½ cup of brandy. You may wish to leave the cake a day before eating. This cake should keep well in an airtight container, in the fridge if necessary.

Lili Marlene's List of Delightful Children's Picture Books

Lili Marlene's list of delightful children's picture books to share with someone little and lovely (or to enjoy on your own)

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and Other Nonsense Poems by Edward Lear, selected and illustrated by Michael Hague, North South Books, 1995.
The poems are classics and the illustrations are fascinating, beautiful and often grotesque. You might not find it shelved at your local public library in the same section as the picture books for young children. It might instead sit on the junior poetry shelves. Apparently modern notions of age-appropriateness are depriving toddlers and pre-schoolers from being exposed to the rather ornate language of Edward Lear. I love the way that the complex and silly illustrations so appropriately fit the style of language in the poems.

Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski, assistant illustrator Jane Walmsley, paper engineer Tor Lokvig, William Heinemann, 1979.
An all-time classic pop-up book by my favourite picture book illustrator. Be warned - you can frighten little ones with this book. One of the pop-ups still makes a sawing noise when you open the page all these years later. Wonderful!

The Meg and Mog books by Jan Pienkowski
I love the colours, the way the colours vibrate off each other, and the unforgettable black-outline drawings.

A Sausage Went For a Walk by Ellisha Majid and Peter Kendall, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1991.
A Western Australian classic which will make your thoughts turn toward breakfast foods, regardless of the time of day. Now available in the board book format. Referred to as "The shoshage book" by little ones.

Owl Babies written by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Patrick Benson, Walker Books, 1992.
I don't think you would need to have synaesthesia to be able to hear the silence and feel the stillness in these evocative illustrations of nocturnal life. A heart-warming abut mercifully brief book to read to little ones last thing at night. Should only be read aloud in a gentle, quiet voice.

The glorious mother goose selected by Cooper Edens with illustrations by the best artists from the past. Atheneum (Macmillan), 1988.
A feast for the eyes. The illustrations (in colour and black and white) are mostly from the late 1800s and the early 1900s. All of the essential nursery rhymes are here. Be warned - there is a picture of (the always grotesque) Humpty Dumpty in this book that can fill a young child's heart with dread. You may need to skip a page.

The land of nursery rhyme by Alice Daglish and Ernest Rhys with illustrations by Charles Folkard. Orion Books, 2008.
Based on a book of the same name that was published in 1932 by J. M. Dent & Sons. It includes a good selection of classic nursery rhymes and has charming drawings mostly in black and white. A good alternative to the above title.

Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss. Collins, 1958.
Probably the silliest children's story ever written. This is the one with the tweetle beetles.

The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle. Puffin Books (Penguin), 1969.
How could I leave this one out? If you can fit a finger through the holes to make a wiggly caterpillar, you must be very little.

Caps For Sale: a tale of a peddler, some monkeys, and their monkey business by Esphyr Slobodkina. Harpercollins, 1968.
There are many opportunities for laughter if you read it out loud. Available in board book format.

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag. Faber & Faber, 1929.
The story is perhaps a little dark in theme but thoughtful, and the black and white illustrations and handwriting font have a unique style.

Jane Hissey's Old Bear Stories by Jane Hissey. Hutchinson, 1994.
Comforting stories with beautiful, realistic illustrations of reassuringly familiar objects, suitable for pre-schoolers.

Spiders Spin Webs by Yvonne Winer and Karen Lloyd-Jones (illustrator). Charlesbridge Publishing, 1998.
Beautiful realistic illustrations and text that is a poem on each page. Spider identification guide in an appendix. An educational and enjoyable book that presents spiders in a non-negative light. Similar titles include Butterflies Fly, Frogs Sing Songs and Birds Build Nests.

Mr Pod and Mr Piccalilli by Penny Dolan and Nick Sharratt. Walker Books, 2005.
A pleasant story with enjoyable illustrations which I found rather interesting because something like the "bouba-kiki effect" can be found in the interaction between the text and the illustrations. There is a Wikipedia page explaining what the "bouba-kiki effect" is.

Copyright Lili Marlene 2009, 2010.

Lili Marlene's Almond Cookies

Lili Marlene’s Almond Cookies

125g (4 ounces) butter
1 cup brown sugar (packed down)
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla essence
100g ground almonds
1 ½ cups plain flour (can use ½ cup wholemeal plain flour)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder or bicarb
Glace cherries or other things to decorate (optional)
Extra flour for rolling out
Spray grease or butter for baking trays

Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric beater, then beat in the egg and the essence (I often cheat and add the egg before the mix is properly creamed, it speeds up the process but there is a risk of curdling)

Sift the flour and the baking powder or bicarb together

Stir the ground almonds into the creamed mixture with a wooden spoon, then mix in the flour

Gently grab the mix together with floured fingers and roll it into a ball. Unless the mix feels firm and cool, chill mix for ½ hour before rolling it out (to make the dough less sticky to handle)

Preheat oven. Divide dough into two balls, roll dough on a floured board with rolling pin, cut into shapes with cookie cutters or rim of a glass (a small star shape will bake quickly and evenly and looks festive decorated with a half cherry in the centre) (keep rolling out left-over pieces till all the dough is used up)

Place cookies on greased baking trays (leave plenty of space), and decorate if you wish to. Bake in a moderate oven (180C/350F) for around 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool a few minutes on trays, then place on cooling rack.


Copyright Lili Marlene 2008

Lili in the Kitchen - Kitchen tips for those who value cleanliness and health

- keep a toothbrush at the kitchen sink to keep your metal kitchen utensils really properly clean (but obviously make sure no one uses it for their teeth)

- a kitchen is no place for pets or children or pot plants or insects or cigarettes or dirty slobs (just F-off out of my kitchen!)

- no arses on table or bench tops (disgusting!)

- do not place full shopping bags on kitchen work surfaces (where have they been?)

- don't buy fruit and vegetables that you know will not be eaten within a few days, as compost belongs in the compost bin, not in the fridge or the fruit bowl

- go to your cutlery drawer, take out a fork, look between the prongs closely or with a magnifier glass, is the fork REALLY clean? No? Then don't ask me over for a meal, thanks.

- can openers of any type need to be washed after EVERY use

- can openers used to open pet food tins must not be used to open tins of food for human consumption

- plastic food utensils cannot be used in a frypan (you moron!)

- replace your kitchen dish-cloth daily

- do not use a dish-drainer on your sink that holds pools of mouldy water in it

- do not leave wet dishes stacked so that they don't drain properly

- do not rinse out a filthy used mop in the kitchen sink (no kidding, I've seen a mum do this at a playgroup meeting)

- don't serve unwashed, over-ripe or tasteless fruit to children (isn't it great when your little one picks up a piece of fruit from the playgroup kids' fruit plate and it still has a little sticker on it?)

- if you can't manage to clear your dirty dishes at least once a day, it's time to hire a cleaner, or give up cooking and live on restaurant food or takeaways, or book yourself into a nursing home or a residential care facility, or ask your folks if you can come back home

Lili in the Kitchen - Quest for a healthy-ish cake that tastes like marzipan

I've read that almonds are tremendously nutritious, so it's one of the foods that I'd like to get the kids to eat. I've tried sneaking almond meal into cake and brownie and pudding recipies, but it just tends to roughen the texture of things. The kids do love marzipan (what sane healthy person doesn't?), and for a long time I've been tricking the kids into eating healthy foods by using them furtively as cake ingredients, so I started looking for a cake recipe that has almond meal and tastes like marzipan. One would think that shouldn't be difficult, but it appears that marzipan isn't the flavour of the month, and doesn't come up the online data base of popular Australian recipes that I usually use. So then I thought, look up the company that makes almond essence. Good idea. I found a cake recipe that contains lots of almond meal, fresh orange, lots of eggs, but no butter, marg or oil and very little flour. It's nutrition ingeniously disguised as a cake, and the family all like it. Two tips for making this recipe: you can substitute real brandy for the brandy essence, and it would probably still have plenty of flavour without either, and even with a lined tin the bottom tends to burn, so you may wish to add 2 layers of brown paper or grease-proof paper to the base.

Almond and Orange Cake
from Queen Essenceshttp://www.queenessences.com.au/recipes/show.php?recipeid=10

Cliches, fads, popular misconceptions and assorted bull#$%@ that I've had quite enough of

Depressing gray-coloured minimalist-style houses that look strange in the midst of a world of colour and complexity

The idea of just “one iota”, but not two iotas or 89 or 40,000 iotas

Obesity in TV personalities

Cooking magazine covers featuring a dessert or cake with raspberries on top

Posing for a photograph with another person making the outline of a heart shape with parts of your bodies

Making your kids do the above

Job ads that ask for applicants who feel "passionate" about whatever form of drudgery the job entails

Feeling "passionate" about cooking

Describing an enthusiastic or capable person as "passionate"

Old folks complaining that "they don't teach spelling in schools any more", like in the Olden Days teachers worked their way systematically through an English dictionary from A to Zymurgy

Mothers bitching to other mothers about their sons' misbehaviour

Describing chocolate-flavoured foods as "decadent"

Describing fat-filled foods as "wicked"

Macarons

Cutely-decorated cupcakes

Relishes

Caramelizing vegetables

Cakes with white icing that drips down the sides

Footy players with depression

Normally-stoic men crying in TV interviews

Women blaming themselves

Unconvincing TV soap and drama characters who constantly consider the welfare and feelings of others

Professional women on TV obsessing over the eating habits or food availability of others

The idea that individuals deciding to not read or view an offensive item in print or the electronic media is an adequate response to the offensive item

Journalists doing stories about whether the streets are safe following a senseless murder

The idea that women like to eat chocolate for emotional reasons

The idea that gluttony with sweet foods is a feminine behaviour

The idea that women like syrupy-sweet alcoholic drinks

A holiday in Disneyland

A holiday in Bali

The use of the word “adrenaline” in a non-medical context.

The use of the word “testosterone” in a non-medical context

The use of the word "passion" in a non-religious context

The use of the words "connect" and "connection" in non-physical contexts

The idea of "Empathy"

“The Obesity Epidemic”

“The Autism Epidemic”

The idea of "retail therapy" as a favourite pastime of women

Old people believing that that all youths are out of control

Hip Hop culture

Endless mental health awareness campaigns

Asking a pregnant woman what gender she is hoping her unborn child will be

Answering that question by saying "I don't care as long as the baby is healthy/normal"

Absurdly enthusiastic celebrity chefs on TV

People bursting into tears during TV interviews

Rolf Harris bursting into tears during TV interviews

Graffiti tags

The idea that children will love eating fresh fruit and salad if it is presented attractively or entertainingly

Just about everything that sports commentators say

Just about everything that Andrew Denton says or thinks

Absolutely everything that Ray Martin has ever said or will say

Smoking

Working-class mothers with gigantic arses

The Australian ute (I remember the days when useful people drove utes)

The Australian ute with an Australian breed of dog in the back (a Blue Heeler or a Kelpie) - a double Australian nationalistic cliche

The idea of “Mateship”

Referring to "mateship" on ANZAC Day

Bright pink clothes for girls to wear

Baby boys in blue and baby girls in pink

Overgeneralized statements about “how boys think” or “how boys learn”

Bestseller books in paperback editions about psychological differences between the sexes

Ugly and meaningless motifs on the front of T-shirts

“Growing old disgracefully”

“Marching to a different drummer”

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief

The assumption that the loved ones of a dead victim will “have closure” as the result of being given new information or a body being found

The idea that anyone can become addicted to drugs after one or a few uses, and they are powerless to avoid or resist addiction

The idea that drug addiction forces formerly normal people to turn to crime and lead a life of degradation, rather than the obvious possibility that criminal or troubled people may be more likely than others to become drug addicts

The idea that 12-step programs are an effective intervention for alcoholism

The idea that caffeine is a harmful drug

The idea that cannabis is a mild or relatively benign drug because it is "natural"

The idea that sociability and alcohol consumption go hand in hand

The idea that some forms of sexuality are more "natural" than others

Deliberately making your car’s tyres screech as you do a turn from a suburban road

Cars with red paintwork (go faster they say)

The sound of a record being scratched while playing, as a sound effect denoting the abrupt end of a pleasant fantasy

The idea that loners dream of becoming popular in some miraculous transformation

The idea that dyslexia is writing letters backwards

The idea that synaesthesia is nothing but a mixing-up of the senses

The idea that autism is an inability to read facial expressions

The idea that all geniuses are at least a little bit insane

The idea that personality is formed from early childhood experiences involving parents and siblings

The idea that a substantial proportion of women are physically unable to breast-feed

The idea that pasta is health food

The idea that yoghurt is much healthier than other dairy foods

Claiming for no apparent reason that you don’t fear death, when no one really cares what your feelings are about the subject

The idea that mental illness is caused by not expressing emotions

Aboriginal youths taking speed and stealing cars and killing people in car crashes

The idea that young Australian families with mortgages are in financial stress because they demand to live in luxurious two-storey McMansions

McMansions

McMansions with non-functional tall pillars either side of the front door

The idea that the problems of all troubled youth and children can be solved by improving their diets

The idea that all social problems can be solved by increasing social connectedness

The idea that children with abnormal behaviour who were raised in horrible Romanian orphanages in the 1980s were like that solely due to emotional and educational deprivation

Using the above idea as emotional blackmail to make new mothers comply with whatever advice on parenting that a self-appointed parenting expert advoocates

The idea that parents can create super-intelligent offspring out of normal babies by doing educational interventions and buying educational toys

The idea that intellectually gifted children are made, not born

The idea that caesarian birth is an easier option for the mother than an uncomplicated vaginal birth

The idea that autism is one condition with one thing causing it

The idea that all Australians like to eat Vegemite

The idea that motor mechanics are all the type of bloke who likes to smoke and drink beer

White Iceberg roses and some fancy type of couch grass for a lawn in the front garden

Back yards decorated like an indoor room, with a grey colour scheme, and flowerless, fruitless and scentless plants with odd-coloured foliage

As Hedley Lamarr (in the movie Blazing Saddles) would say:

I HATE THAT CLICHE!

How to be a f*ckwit on the phone

The ring of my telephone strikes fear into my heart; how can I be sure that there isn’t a f*ckwit on the end of that line?

How to be a f*ckwit on the phone:

Don’t return calls.

Don’t respond to messages.

Don’t even listen to messages.

Don’t listen to messages till weeks or months later.

Have a phone message service operating on your land-line, unchecked for months while you are secretly away overseas on the trip of a lifetime.

Don’t check recorded messages for weeks or months, and still expect the caller to be interested when you finally call them back.

Don’t bother to write people’s phone numbers down when they give them to you. You can always call them later to ask.

Answer highly personal phone calls with your phone on speaker mode within earshot of a crowd of strangers or acquaintances, and don’t tell the caller.

Never do anything so ordinary as answering a phone when it rings: always return calls or messages at a time that is convenient to you, but which is probably not nearly as convenient to the other person who phoned you in the first place, who has three kids with ADHD bouncing off the walls, a toddler in the midst of toilet-training and a newborn baby with colic.

Expect others to communicate capably with you in your preferred mode of communication; call a semi-verbal autistic person just for a chat, ask a stutterer to keep it brief please, and tell a dyslexic to put it all in writing.

Get paid for being a f*ckwit on the phone; work in a call centre bothering members of the public in a faraway country at dinnertime to try to sell them stuff.

Run lots of telephones off one land-line, so that the sound of your voice is so quiet to callers as to be scarcely audible.

Use a defective cordless phone, so that the sound of your voice is so quiet to callers as to be scarcely audible.

Don’t get too hung up over minor details; what does it matter if you make a few wrong-number calls?

Make a wrong number call and then get a bit miffed when the other person doesn’t recognize your voice “It’s Sebastian calling!”

Leave your borderline retarded offspring unsupervised and bored at home for long periods of time, so that they can get on with their prank calls undisturbed.

Have three or more telephone numbers so that potential callers have to think “eeny meeny miney f*cking moe” when they try to decide how to try to contact you.

When a family member that you haven’t spoken to for months calls, ask them to get off your line as you are expecting an important call.

Expect the target of your phone call to be continually available to take calls at home on a land line, because she is a housewife and a mother.

Have an automated phone answering service operating that has no message recorded on it, leaving callers to wonder what the heck is going on as they waste the cost of a phone call.

Copyright Lili Marlene 2007