HCB: Fruitcake Wreath

I already made this week's cake for a Free Choice back in November, so I'm doing a catch up again (seems to be a trend these day).

These are fruitcake cupcakes. I do not own the wreath pan, nor do I wish to own one. Even though it was on sale for $9.99 at Michael's during Christmas last year. The pan is huge and it's supposed to feed 14-16 people. I don't see how often I will get to use it, so I'd rather use the storage space for something else :).

I've macerated the candied fruits and golden raisins for this cake for 4 weeks now. I used a large canning jar and turned the jar around every day for a week, and then the jar sort of sat on the counter for the last 3 weeks.

I did not intend to macerate the fruits for that long, but things happened. Or more correctly, other cakes happened. Somehow this cake does not sound appetizing to me, which is strange, considering I like cakes with fruit so much.

Trying to figure out why this cake is not interesting, I think it's because there's way too much stuff in it. All those candied fruits, plus raisins, plus walnuts and pecans. The rum component sounds yummy though - I love cake with alcohol. And this one in particular sounds like it's on the drunk side.

This cake, as it turns out, is very easy. The hardest part is waiting for the toasted nuts to cool. Had I realized that I need to toast the nuts, I would have done it last night or something. Anyway, I made 1/4 recipe of the fruitcake, and it yielded 8 cupcakes - about 55 grams each. Yes, it seems like I can't avoid complicated math when baking. Thank you Rose for grams measurement in your recipes! And thank goodness for whoever invented calculators!

Back to the recipes, the cake calls for mixing butter and brown sugar together, add eggs and vanilla, then add the remaining dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt), and finally add the candied fruits and nuts.

In cupcake form, they bake in 20 minutes. While it was cooling, I brushed a bit more rum on top of each cupcake. Why not, the more rum the merrier!

Tasting impressions:
Where did all the rum go? It was pretty rummy yesterday right after it cooled down and today all the rum taste is gone! It is not bad, but I'm not falling in love with it. I like the nuts flavor and texture with the batter but I'm not sure I'm liking the candied fruits. And I'm definitely sad that it's not a drunk cake anymore!

FFWD: Sweet & Spicy Cocktail Nuts

This is Sweet & Spicy Cocktail Nuts from Dorie Greenspan. It is so easy to make and so good. Dorie said that this is one of those recipes that you can tweak as  you wish - try different spices and flavor combo - so you can truly make it your own.

I decided that I will follow her spices combo as is to see what it taste like. I've never made spiced nuts before, anyway. For the nuts I used cashews, walnuts, and pecans. Coat the nuts with egg whites. Then combined the spices: sugar, salt, chili powder, ground cinnamon, and cayenne. Mix everything together, spread on a silpat and bake.

1/2 hour later and voila! Yummy nuts that are quite photogenic :).

Tasting impressions:
Very very good. Crunchy and slightly sweet. I was being sparing on the cayenne and am finding there's not enough kick here, so next time will up the cayenne - and try other spices.