Rum Glaze for Celebration Fruit Cake

Weddings and twenty-first birthdays call for a special iced fruit cake. Today's recipe is for a glaze to spread on a traditional rich fruit cake before it is covered with almond and then plain icing layers.
The first list of ingredients comes from a recipe I was given many years ago during a cake decorating class. It is in imperial measurements ("pounds and ounces") and makes a very large quantity of glaze, too much for the "occasional" cake decorator.
The second list of ingredients is metric and the amounts are those I usually use - it's more than enough for a two-tier wedding cake but the glaze keeps well in the fridge so it's worth making a decent amount if you are likely to decorate Christmas cakes later in the year.


Rum Glaze for Iced Fruit Cakes
Original ingredients list (imperial measurements)
1lb 14oz apricot jam (smooth)
3/4lb sugar
4oz brown rum
4oz brandy
1 cup water

Metric list (half the original quantity)
425g apricot jam (smooth)
170g sugar
57ml brown rum
57ml brandy
1/2 cup water

Method:
Boil sugar and water for 10 minutes.
Add jam. Bring back to the boil.
Add rum and brandy.
Cool.
If not smooth, strain.
Keep in a screw top jar in the fridge until needed.

Mrs Resak's Almond Crescents

WHEN I was growing up in Melbourne's western suburbs in the 1950s many of my neighbours were European refugees.
My house was opposite a railway line, just near the railway station.
My best friend Kathleen (or Katti) lived on the opposite side of the tracks.
Kathleen was Hungarian. Her parents were in the Hungarian Resistance and fled for their lives ahead of the Russian invasion by skiing across the border, leaving Kathleen and her brother behind with their grandmother.
Kathleen and I met at primary school in about 1960 when she and her brother were finally reunited with their parents in Australia.
Another neighbour was Maurice Chevalier. When he arrived in Australia the press mobbed him, thinking he was the famous French singer.
He wasn't a singer - but he was very French. We would stand gobsmacked when he came home from work and swept his wife Eileen into a very European embrace. Our parents did nothing like that.
Eileen was Australian but had studied French and they had probably met at the Alliance Francaise.
Eileen was the link between the Australian-born women in the neighbourhood and the new arrivals, most of whom spoke little or no English.
They would move into a group of houses on the other side of the railway line, live there for a few months and then leave. I have often wondered since if the houses were owned or rented by some sort of group that worked with refugees to help them settle in to their new country.
One year a group of refugees arrived just before Christmas.
I was too young to know much about where they had come from but I remember they seemed very sad.
Eileen Chevalier organised a morning tea so the refugee women could meet some of their neighbours.
They didn't speak much French either but they understood she wanted them to ``bring a plate''.
When they arrived at the morning tea, one woman introduced herself shyly as ``Mrs Resak'' (at least that was what her name sounded like to me). She brought a plate of small almond crescents, smothered in vanilla-flavoured icing sugar.
They were the most exotic biscuits I had ever eaten - light shortbreads that melted in my mouth.
Mrs Resak wrote out the recipe for me and Eileen translated it into English. The ingredients were given in grams but Eileen converted them to ounces.
I have made the crescents most Christmases since then and and always think of Mrs Resak when I do. I never met her again.
I hope you enjoy the crescents as much as my family do.

Mrs Resak's Almond Crescents
Ingredients110g (4 oz) plain flour
50g (1 3/4 oz) almond meal
95g (3 1/3 oz) butter
35g (1 1/3 oz) sugar

Method Mix all the ingredients together by hand, squeezing the mixture through your fingers.
Form into small crescents or ``Napoleon's hat'' shapes.
Bake in a slow oven 160C (325F) until pale brown, about 15 minutes.
While still warm, not hot, roll in vanilla-flavoured icing sugar.

Mrs Resak's vanilla-flavoured icing sugar
Mix two packets of vanilla (or vanillin) sugar with 225g (8oz) icing sugar.
Note: This makes a huge quantity, and vanilla sugar is expensive. So I usually shake a few teaspoons of vanilla sugar (from the spice section of the supermarket) in about a cup of icing sugar.
That makes enough vanilla sugar for a batch of crescents.

Chocolate and Almond Cake

The first time I baked Elizabeth David's ``chocolate and almond cake'' I was hooked.

The cake is simple to make, oh-so-rich in flavour and texture, and the perfect accompaniment to summer berries and cream.

This is a cake for special occasions and a decadent delight for breakfast. Waiting until afternoon tea time to eat the leftovers is a recipe for disappointment. Someone will have beaten you to it.

I first saw the recipe in a column food writer Jill Dupleix contributed to a series called ``My Favourite Chocolate Cake'' in Melbourne newspaper The Age in the 1990s.

But the recipe is much older than that.

It comes from David's book French Provincial Cooking, first published in 1960.

The cake's richness is the direct opposite of the ``bigger than Texas'' blight that has driven the obesity epidemic in much of the western world. It has none of the blandness that makes it easy to eat more than you should.

Like much French cooking it relies on the flavour and texture of fresh and rich ingredients to sate the senses.

A thin slice of this cake is heaven; a thick wedge would be sickening.

My much-loved newspaper cutting is yellow and creased after more than a decade in my ``Little Black Box''.

But last year I went in search of the original book, after hearing television foodie Rick Stein sing David's praises during a radio interview on ABC FM.

David travelled extensively through the Mediterranean countries, particularly Italy and France. Her books include both recipes and experiences collected on her travels. She has also written about cooking in England.

I have seen secondhand copies of many of her titles listed for a few dollars on Amazon. Copies are harder to find in Australia but it's worth keeping an eye out in secondhand bookshops.

So here is my favourite chocolate cake.

NB In this recipe I have given the quantities from Elizabeth David's original recipe in brackets. These are in imperial measures - in this case weights in ounces (oz) and temperature in Fahrenheit.

The metric measures are from Jill Dupleix's version, as this is the one I have always made.

I hope soon to try the original, which has slightly less chocolate and is baked in a slightly cooler oven, and will let you know which I prefer. I have changed the method slightly to reflect the way I usually make the cake.

Elizabeth David's Chocolate and Almond Cake

Ingredients

200g (4 oz) bitter chocolate

100g (3 oz) butter

100g (3 oz) caster sugar

100g (3 oz) ground almonds

3 eggs (separated)

1 tab rum or brandy

1 tab black coffee

icing sugar (optional)

Method

Break chocolate into small pieces, add the rum (or brandy) and coffee and melt in a heat-proof bowl over simmering water, or in a microwave.

Stir until the chocolate is melted. Add the butter, sugar and ground almonds and stir over low heat for a few minutes until all the ingredients are blended smoothly together.

Remove from the heat and add well-beaten egg yolks. Fold in the stiffly-beaten egg whites.

Turn into a lightly-buttered shallow sponge-cake tin, 18-20cm in diameter (7 or 8 inches) or a tart tin with a removable base.

[I use a sponge tin and line the base with baking paper.]

Stand the tin on a baking sheet and bake in a very low oven, 160C (290F) for about 45 minutes.

Allow to cool in the tin. Turn out carefully.

Serve it as it is or dust with a little icing sugar.

Perfect as a dessert with summer berries, cream or icecream.