This is the ingredient list. We're in England, so weights are grams and kilograms for the dry fruit ingredients. Yes yes, Derpina, there are some tsps and tbsps but those aren't necessary to the story.
Assembly table #1
The cauldron. Normally used for the Christmas Chutneys, but this year, it was decided that the making of the chutney was far too dangerous for their relationships with one another. So, cakes it was.
This is Ruth's mother, Susan. She's lining the cake tins with parchment paper. Notice the coffee mug. The cuppa is ever present in this house, in this country. Omnipresent, really...like a Route 44 Sonic drink in a teacher's classroom: ubiquitous.
Commence round 1 with all this butter!
It goes in the cauldron! Add lots of sugar! That's smart.
Count those mutha-fucking eggs! 12! And we ain't even done yet!
The stuff that goes in cake.
Put some peel there, bitches. Life's too short to drink alone.
Mixed fruit and currants soaked in Courvoisier
They all go in!
Divide it evenly, yo. Make some divots in the middle for the alcohol collection. Was told that one of these would be mine. Dammit.
Start round two. That's me folks. I was a mixin' fool! Roo's mom brought an industrial strength one because she learned from last year's mishap: the mixer's motor burned out.
Whoomp! Dere it is! Shakalaka. This one was mine. It has crystallized ginger, dates, nuts, and other mixed fruits too. I think there was mango. Not positive. It too has a divot for the alcohol. It was my "practice cake".
Take it to the pub and eat that brick. Fucker was massive. This was only half of it. Gave the other half to Peter the Bartender. Haven't heard back from him about it, so it must've been alright.
So theoretically speaking, there'd be a cake in a tin on my counter (aka 'bench' in this neck of the woods) and I'd be "feeding" it spirits each week... Like I have some minor cake god to appease.
I couldn't wait for that though. I wanted to try it out. And you know what? It was like fruitcake. I don't like fruitcake really. Neither do SciMan and Kiddo. But you know what else? When Roo gives me the Christmas Cake that I helped to make, I'm going to eat some and be grateful that I have such a great friend in her. She drives me places that would take me an hour by bus (not counting wait times). We have a lot of laughs together; our taste in alcohol is similar: I like it straight from the bottle and not in a cake, so does she. My kid loves her and vice versa. She's my first grown-up friend* and I'm very very lucky to have one like her.
*to all my other friends that I made before I was "grown-up": I love you realhard. It isn't that I don't think you are "real" friends, it's that you met me when I was young and stupid and you liked me. You even like me now when I'm older and more stupid than before and I imagine that you'll keep on keepin' on when I'm way old and catatonically senile. I sure as hell hope so. You know my skeletons, so to speak. And maybe, just maybe it's because of that that I'm wondering what's wrong with you.
