In September of 2009, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven't read about it yet, you can do so here. ***
((I suppose since it's February I should finally show you the cupcakes I made for Christmas.))
Ahh, fruit cake. It's about as Christmasy as Rudolph and elves and icicle lights, is it not? So of course I had to try the cupcake version of the infamous cake that everyone re-gifts. :)
The first step was to soak candied fruit (is that stuff even really fruit?!) in rum for a couple hours.
Meanwhile, I mixed the dry ingredients...
...and the wet ingredients, including apricot jelly and orange zest (that's the blob to the left of the yolk).
Then, dry and wet were combined.
Mesa, my chef-helper, wanted to make sure you knew she was in the kitchen with me that day.
After mixing the batter, we added in the rum-infused candied fruit...THE strongest-smelling cake batter EVER.
Since I've learned to make a few more than the recipe says, I ended up with 19 instead of 12. I guess the cupcake tins in France (where the author lives) are bigger than our American version...??
The spices and candied fruit did give the batter a really pretty coloring and great texture.
They even looked cute after they were baked.
Next, we mixed up the fondant...not the typical plasticy rolled fondant you buy in stores...this is more of a glaze.
As I glazed each cupcake, my lovely assistant added red and green Christmas tree sprinkles.
Not bad!!
But even if it was nasty (like fruitcake is rumored to be), it'd be pretty hard to re-gift it with a big bite missing. :)