Recipe: Orange Rum Cake

Tara and I tried a number of new recipes over Christmas: cakes, cookies, main dishes. The one that stands out in my mind is this one: The Joy of Cooking's Orange Rum Cake. It is like a pound cake, but lighter. The first time we made it we omitted the rum; the second time we didn't. Both results were fantastic.

I didn't, unfortunately, snap a picture of either result. The next time I make it I will.

Orange Rum Cake

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs
• zest of 1 large orange, grated
• 1 1/4 cup flour (all-purpose)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 5 tbsp dark rum

Preheat the oven to 375 F

Grease a 9" round pan

With an electric mixer, mix together the sugar, salt and eggs in a large bowl for about 4 minutes until it is pale yellow

Fold in the flour and baking powder

Stir in the butter and cream

Scrape into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean).

Run a knife along the edge and invert over a cooling rack. Remove pan and let cool right-way-up.

If adding the rum, poke holes with a toothpick or skewer all over the top of the cooled cake. Drizzle the rum over it.

I attempted to top with icing sugar, but the presentation wasn't terribly good as the sugar disappeared after soaking up the rum.

Amazing Christmas Tree

We put away our Christmas tree last night and I dragged it outside this morning. I don't think I have ever seen a Christmas tree so resilient! It wasn't watered since Boxing day but yet it was green and fresh - almost like new.

I can't remember the name of the place we got it from, but if I do (or, more likely, Tara does) I 'll let you guys know. It a farm between Kitchener and Guelph, close to the 24 and Guelph. I most definitely will be considering getting our next tree from them!

Christmas 2006 has come and gone and all that's left is to strip the tree, put away the decorations and somehow figure out how to lose the extra weight gained (thanks for all the chocolate Mom and Mom-in-law!)

I trust that the season was good for you and yours.

It was a green Christmas here in Kitchener; not a lick of snow in sight. It's not the first green Christmas I've had, but I think it was the warmest. Kind of an odd feeling to wake up Christmas morning to a green-brown lawn.

We had, for the first time, my entire family at our place for Christmas morning. It was pretty cool. I had forgotten how nice it was to have my folks around for Christmas. There was much laughing and eating and present opening and domino playing.

After a too-short-a-visit with my family, we headed up to the great whiter north to have a too-short-a-visit with Tara's family. Again there was much laughing and eating and present opening; there wasn't any domino playing but there was boxing day shopping.

And while there wasn't a lot of snow in North Bay, there was more than there was in Kitchener. We trekked through the bush a couple of times and got wet and snowy. A good time was had by all.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. When we saw the forecast for freezing rain in Barrie on New Year's day, we high-tailed it back home a day early. We had one day of relaxing and then it was back to real life... Too bad.

A few pics to make you all happy :)

This is how green the grass was outside	Mom riding King - look at that form!
The whole clan	Perfect
If I was quicker, we could have had venison for dinner	Just a nice pic of the dog
Finena sitting pretty for Dave

Tis the season (to be busy)

I know, I know. It's been too long since I last posted anything. Some of you have been wondering if I am still doing this blogging thing. I am but this month has been busy. Too busy, but good busy.

Much of the busyness was due to getting ready for our Christmas dessert / housewarming party.

We wanted to have a bunch of friends and colleagues over for a dessert party. So we sent out a whack of invitations and started baking. And baking. And baking. Almost three weeks of on-again-off-again baking.

And then we started cleaning. It's funny how you can leave your house untidy unless you have people over. We really should try and keep it tidy for ourselves (but we never do).

Sunday was the big night. We told people to come sometime after 7:00. The food was laid out, the cider was hot and the wine was cold. 7:00 rolled over and then 7:10 and then 7:15 and no one showed up. Tara and I looked at each other and thought "What if no one comes? What are we going to do with all this food?" Just then then door bell rang and slowly people started coming in. And then more people and more people. We had people come that we didn't think would show (and others didn't show that said they would - you know who you are...)

Food was eaten, drinks were drank and a laughter filled the house. All told we had about 25 show up. We had way more food than we needed, but better more than less. Everyone we've talked to said they had a good time and that they hope we do it again.

I'll post the recipes of the favorites from the evening. If you are reading this and you want a recipe for something, leave a comment (it's super easy). If you are reading this and you weren't there, let us know so you get invited next time (sorry we couldn't invite you all).

Hmmmm, desserts... Of course we took the saran off before the guests arrived.

What's a party without drinks?

Cranberry-pistachio- white chocolate cake - heavy and good.

Chocolate raspberry cake - a hit!

What party is complete without cheese and fruit?

Odds and ends

Nothing blog worthy recently - just a few snippets of thoughts.

I finished The Picture of Dorian Grey this week. It's a bit of a slow read and is both interesting and depressing. At the end I thought to myself it could be really well adapted as a movie. Sure enough, a quick jaunt over to IMDb shows that 14 movies made from the book. I may just track one of them down.

Talking about movies, Tara and I watched Akeelah and the Bee last night. It was a good movie - something that I would take kids to.

I tried the bread recipe a few posts down with half whole wheat. It didn't turn out - it was really dense and mostly unpleasant. I may have left it to rise a bit too long (20 hours). I am going to go back to the recipe and get that down pat before I start making variations.

We had cannelloni for dinner tonight - stuffed with mushrooms, ricotta and mozzarella and smothered in a nice marina sauce. Stuffed pasta is sooo good. And it really doesn't take all that much time to make (75 minutes, door to plate). We really should make it more often.