Christmas Cake and Pudding step by step. Part 1 - Preparing the Dried Fruit

Ho Ho Ho. David Jones is setting up Christmas decorations for sale.

Seriously people, this is August!  August!

Now, as someone who travelled to North Pole to visit Santa’s reindeer, even I feel 4 months preparation for Christmas is extreme.  However, having said that, preparing your dried fruit for Christmas Puddings, Festive cakes and ‘Season’s Greetings’ tarts and goodies can be easily achieved over next few weeks.

So, this is not a recipe as such – just breaking a job down into ‘bite-size’ stages so you can have all the work done by the end of November.  I live in a humid part of the world, so I try to avoid hours of hot cooking in the lead-up to the Christmas countdown week. This method spreads the workload before the sub-tropical heat really sets in.

In the coming weeks I will add further posts detailing preparation and cooking – easy!

Dried Fruit preparation

Buy your dried fruit – look for fruit that still retains some softness and fresh appeal.  Avoid any dried rock-hard bullets.  Use any mixture that you like from your favourite recipe, or if you prefer, it is fine to purchase the pre-mixed ‘dried fruit’ packets.

Use your preference or the suggestion from your recipe of either Rum (Bundy of course!), Brandy or Sherry.  This will flavour the fruit and help keep the finished cake moist.

Sterilize your jars.

Note on the jars how much fruit and rum is in each jar.  

I store 1 kilogram of mixed dried fruit with half a cup of rum in the large jars, then smaller ratio quantities in the smaller jars,  - just do the quantity you want.

1 kilogram fruit  = 1/2 cup rum

1/2 kilogram fruit = 1/4 cup rum  etc etc

Once you have measured the fruit and rum into each jar, seal them tightly and wash any stickiness off the outside of the jars.  Put the jars on a tea-towel on a tray.  This will help you check there are no leaks when you turn them over. A leak will indicate that the lid is not sealed properly.  

Leave the tray in a darkened corner out of the way for one week. 

Now the fun bit: every time you walk past that corner, turn the jars upside down to rotate and rattle the jar around a bit ensuring the rum is evenly distributed and the fruit will plump up slightly.  Turn as many times as you like during this week.

At the end of the week, the rum should be mostly absorbed by the fruit.

Just find a dark spot in the back of the pantry and store them ready for use later – easy!

                                        Enjoy!   Colleen