So the fruitcake had been in the oven an hour like it was supposed be. It didn't look done. I left it in 10 minutes more. Still didn't look done but it was pulling away from the sides of the pan and was really getting brown. "This MUST be done," I said and pulled all three fruitcakes from the oven.
They weren't done.
I have salvaged the ends of two of them. I guess the good news is the tiny bit of brandy my sister, Cyberspace Sarah, had left over from a ham a few years back will be enough to baste it for the next three weeks. The bad news is that I am really discouraged and this has done nothing to increase my sense of holiday cheer.
My little blog friend Margaret has taken a sabbatical from her blog to prepare her heart for Christmas. I admire that a lot. I don't feel much of a sense of holiday joy at all. I feel like we have gone screaming from Thanksgiving to Christmas without so much as a thank you Wampanoag Indians for coming. I thought maybe if I submerged myself in cookie baking/decorating/fruicake experimentation, I would feel more excited, but I can't even turn the Christmas XM station on yet. I'm feeling all Charlie Brown.
Maybe a sad looking little tree . . .
I had to laugh at your fruitcake massacre because I had one of them many years ago. I spent a fortune on the ingredients, followed every instruction to a T, baked it a long time, and when it done it wouldn't come out of the pan. It came out in chunk and was a crumbly mess. All I could think of was how much money I had wasted. I never made another fruitcake.
ReplyDeleteThis was ABSOLUTELY my first thought. The finances in my home are based on the manufacturing economy. Not good these days. I thought, "Look, I am dumping money in the garbage all because I didn't trust my toothpick."
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