Christmas is a-coming

Wednesday 28th October, 2020.

Having weighed and measured all the appropriate ingredients yesterday, today was the day for mixing and cooking the Christmas Cakes. One had a half dozen eggs, the other four. I was to be the muscle man of mixing the butter and brown sugar. Then the eggs and flour added and mixed. Beware of curdling. Then the fruit...and the smell of that fruit already marinaded in brandy. It was almost intoxicating.

The large cake to be baked for three hours. It took nearly four. The smaller cake to be cooked also for three hours and it too had an extra hour. It is, I am reliably informed, the depth of mixture that determines the length of time in the oven. The house was and still is filled with the delightful odours of the cakes. Icing will come in a month or so.

I was surprised at how hard and tiring the mixing was....and we do not use a mechanical mixing machine but elbow grease. What a satisfying feeling it is...I just hope the taste will match the effort and the ingredients.

After a much needed siesta I went off to my friend with the AGA and stewed some 6lbs of wild and crab apples. The pulp is dripping as I write and tomorrow I will return to add the sugar and make the jelly. It is with the lavender as the resultant jelly is superb. I refuse to listen to the gloom and doom merchants re health and sugar content and diabetes rumours. As a doctor friend of years ago used to say "What you enjoy is the major part of health". He may have been wrong or my interpretation of his saying wrong but he died at 97 and was a happy loving healthy man, if a little overweight! I miss him as I face the puritanical medics of today. He judged the individual. As an individual I judge for myself. I am not a fool and realise the essential nature of health. I refuse to be brow beaten and mollycoddled even when it is done for my own good! Am I stubborn or merely nurturing my own freedoms?

I have not walked today. I feel I need a little exercise but will forego it for the greater good of just relaxing.

#christmascake #health #medics #nature