Fruit cakes, human and otherwise

The cakes were quite an experience, and probably not one I will want to repeat.  It started Wednesday evening when I fairly finely chopped two full cups of Turkish apricots, one apricot at a time with a big knife.  Up before David on Thursday morning, and got the apricots on the stove to simmer for 30 minutes with just as many golden raisins, and some water and sugar. Then they had to cool.  After breakfast I put the rest of it together, and it absolutely filled my biggest mixer bowl.  I was sure it wouldn't fit into the two bread pans it called for, but had carefully lined them with baking parchment, anyway, and it did indeed fill them both, but not overflowing, so into the oven they went.  The recipe said to bake them for an hour, but to check them after 45 minutes, as ovens differ.  They sure do!  They were checked at 45 minutes, and then every 10 minutes until they had been in the oven for 2 hours and 20 minutes.  I was worried about them burning, so tented them with foil, but in the end the outsides were very dark brown, and I'm still not convinced they are cooked in the middle.  They were very expensive to make, even with buying everything at the Bulk Barn.  We both tried a slice from the end of one loaf, and were not impressed.  They are in the freezer now, but I wonder if they should be aged before serving.  The recipe said to make sure they had cooled well before serving, so obviously  an aging process wasn't part of the plan.

I got a batch of Butterscotch Refrigerator cookies rolled and wrapped, and into the freezer, as well as two batches of chocolate chip cookies.  Have either of you every tried to get very sticky glace cherries out of one of those flimsy plastic bags that are used in bulk food stores.  What a mess!  Finished everything about 2:30.  It's been a lot of years since I had a whirling dervish of a baking day like that.  I had given Loren my good Kitchen Aid mixer a couple of years ago, when  I vowed to give up baking, and had to use the very old Oster Kitchen center mixer, that we've kept around for the meat grinder.  The old mixer objected to any sort of demand on it, so I kept everything to small batches, and finished everything with hand mixing, (literally by hand) thanks to David's help.  I sure slept well last night.

I used baking parchment on the cookie trays as well.  I like the stuff, and plan to use it more often.

I still have the Melting Moments to make, and that will involve two full batches.  Part of the secret to making those is to measure the butter very carefully, and not use too much.  The pounds of butter we buy are really a pound i.e. 454 grams.  I've made the mistake of cutting a pound in half, thinking that I will end up with two cups, but that extra bit of butter will make a significant difference in this recipe.  The batter must also be very well mixed, or there can be problems.  A simple recipe, but prone to problems.  They sure are good though.  David also wants to make another batch of shortbread, so maybe early next week.