Across the Miles

West Cork blipper Freespiral posted her Christmas cake recipe a week ago, and I was taken by the limited number of ingredients for the batter and the ease of the instructions, which included "I am not a great one for slavishly following recipes and tend to bung in what I fancy."

I often cook that way myself, and as we'd finished last year's fruitcake earlier this year (we nibble on it for months after the holidays), I was inspired to try Freespiral's recipe. Here you see my dried fruit mix, well macerated after a day of soaking in bourbon whiskey. I'll add chopped pecans to this mixture when I make the cake, which, with the bourbon in the fruit and carefully applied afterward in several "doses," will give it a Southern (USA) twist.

The dried fruit included dates, homemade candied grapefruit peel, cranberries, currants, golden raisins, Turkish apricots, local blueberries, and figs.

Thanks, Freespiral, for getting me excited about fruitcake again!

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