The Final Countdown

Ten...nine...eight...

The wedding is eight days away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In eight days, Mark and I will be Mr. & Mrs.!  I can hardly believe it.  We even got our first official wedding gift!! A very dear customer of ours, who just so happens to be an antique dealer, brought us this gorgeous white bowl made of American ironstone.  Contrary to the name, there is no actual iron in it.  It is a very durable type of pottery similar to stoneware and was originally developed as an alternative to porcelain.  This particular piece was made in the 1930's and let me tell you, I'm not surprised it has survived this long.  It is solid to the say the least, but so incredibly beautiful.  ​

 I have been checking the 10 day forecast pretty much every hour on the hour and now that we are less than 10 days out, I can finally get a fair picture of what next Saturday might be like.  As of this moment, weather.com tells me Saturday will be a high of 56 with clouds in the morning and sun in the afternoon.  Which sounds perfect, but I have to admit, there is a part of me that was really hoping for some delicate snowfall action.  Be careful what you wish for, I suppose, but I can't help it.  ​

No matter what the weather, we finally have a pianist (don't ask), we had our final meeting with the pastor, our sweet friends are baking the communion bread and photographing the wedding and at last I decided on the flavors of the cake.  But maybe not the number of tiers.  I'm torn between a modest two tier or a fancy sh-mancy three.  There will only be 14 people, but I'm thinking go big or go home.  Plus, who doesn't love leftover cake for breakfast?

What I'm enjoying the most is watching Mark's excitement level steadily go up.  He is like a little boy waiting for Christmas morning.  I feel the same way.  The weird thing is that my cat is already on farm time.  For some reason, he has been waking me up at 4 am everyday recently.  A little eerie, no doubt, but also amazing.  I can say without grumbling now that I have slightly adjusted to the new alarm, if not completely.

Recently I started gleaning the cupboards in the farm kitchen.  There are some real keepers in that kitchen.  Most notably, some old Corningware in excellent condition, butter crocks, colorful salt and pepper shakers from the 40s or maybe 50s, and Mark's grandmother's rolling pin wrapped in a canvas pastry cloth.  We are so fortunate to still have most of the dishes and glasses from his grandparents as well.  ​ Who needs a registry when you have a kitchen full of buried treasure?

I wanted to be sure and squeeze a quick post in before the wedding crazies because in case you haven't heard, we've been in the local news a few times.  Writer and cookbook author Anne Quinn Corr wrote a lovely article about Mark and me in The Centre Daily Times and State College Magazine featured my recipe for fruitcake in their December issue.  You would think we​ have like a PR person or something.  We have a lot to be thankful for.  

I did a variation of the fruitcake recipe that's in the magazine below and made a fancy little glaze for it!  I will be selling the fruitcake in squares like this at the market.  I love the holidays...you can eat booze-soaked cake whenever and it's completely acceptable.

P.S.  Did you notice I added a Subscribe section up and to the right?!  Now you can sign up to get news from the farm and also when I post new things up on the blog!  There is a subscribe section on the Facebook page, too.  

Until next time, y'all!! 

Bourbon Fruitcake
Makes 1 - 9 x 13" pan or 2 - 9 x 5" loaf pans

Ingredients

​For the fruit

¼ cup (2 fl oz) bourbon, brandy or rum
4 ounces golden raisins
4 ounces currants
4 ounces pecans, toasted
3 ounces candied ginger
3 ounces dried apricots
3 ounces dried sour cherries
 

For the cake

10 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
10 ounces granulated sugar
5 large eggs, room temperature
1 ounce corn syrup, brown rice syrup or honey
1 ounce bourbon, brandy or rum
½ tbsp almond extract
zest of 1 small lemon or orange
½ tbsp lemon juice or orange juice
6 ounces bread flour
6 ounces pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
 
​
For the soak

1 cup (8 fl oz) bourbon, brandy or rum


For the icing
​
3 cups (12 oz) confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup bourbon
1 tbsp corn syrup or brown rice syrup
1/4 tsp salt
​1/2 tsp almond extract

Method
 
For the fruit, make sure everything is a similar size.  Chop the pecans, candied ginger, dried apricots and sour cherries so they are about the size of the raisins and currants. 
 
Combine everything in a bowl, pour your alcohol of choice over the fruit and toss to evenly distribute everything.  Cover and let the fruit macerate for 24 hours.  If you don’t have the patience, microwave the bowl for no more than a minute to rehydrate the fruit a bit and then proceed with the cake.
 
Preheat a conventional oven to 325 F.  Make sure the oven rack is in the center.  Line one, 9 x 13" pan or two, 9 x 5” loaf pans with enough parchment to hang over the sides a bit and grease the pan(s) and paper very well.
 
For the cake, place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.  Cream them until light and fluffy for about 3 minutes. 
 
Scrape the bowl and paddle, turn the mixer back on medium low speed and add the eggs one at a time.  Let each egg incorporate into the butter/sugar mix before adding the next.  Scrape the bowl if needed. 
 
Add the syrup, bourbon, almond extract, lemon or orange zest and juice and beat for about 1 minute until combined.
 
In a separate bowl, sift together the bread and pastry flours and salt.  With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour to the batter and mix until just combined, with some flour still not mixed in.  Remove the bowl from the mixer, scrape the paddle and then gently fold in the macerated fruit. 
 
Pour batter into pan(s) and smooth the top and then place them on the center rack in the oven.  Bake until the cake(s) are just done, when a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out nearly clean.  Depending on your oven, it will take anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. 
Start checking at the 50 minute mark.
 
When the cake is done, let it cool in the pans on a wire rack.  When it is cool to the touch, remove it from the pan and you can begin soaking them one of two ways.  You can put the alcohol in a spray bottle and spritz the cakes, or you can use a pastry brush to apply the alcohol to the cakes.  You can add the entire cup of bourbon to the cake if desired
(or 1/2 cup to each loaf cake).
 
Over the course of a few hours, or even up to 2 days, soak the cake little by little with the alcohol.  Add enough alcohol during each soaking session until the cake is very moist, but the liquid shouldn’t pool.  Let it absorb the alcohol completely before your next application.  Only add more alcohol if it seems dry.  Between soakings, cover the cake in a container.

To make the icing, combine the sugar, water, syrup and salt in a small saucepan.  Heat over a low flame and whisk until all the ingredients properly melt together (about 100 F).

Off the heat, add the almond extract and whisk to combine.  Immediately pour the icing over the cake and let harden.