fabulous fruitcakes with meringue mushrooms {msc}

The mushrooms did it.  They lured me in.  Martha Stewart's cupcakes, decorated with these amazing mushrooms were too wonderful to resist.  Bûche de Noël has always intrigued me, ever since 9th grade French Class with Mr. Condit.  A cake in the shape of a log was such a novel idea, decorated with these cute mushrooms. Trés exotic (remember, this was the 80's, and I'm in NJ), French, and quite irresistible.

So I'm donning a toque to try my hand at these fantastic meringues sitting atop no log, however, but the pervasive holiday fruitcake.  Yes, fruitcake.  I know that word can be cringe-inducing.  You're remembering the overly sugary candied red and green cherries, gluing together some dense, dry mixture posing as a cake.

Fear not, this fruitcake might just banish that nightmare forever.  This is chock-full of moist fruit, with just enough a of buttery batter to hold everything together.  I substituted a few things, as I am not a huge fig and date fan, though if you are, please use them!  My fruit choices come from The Seventh Aunt's fabulous Golden Fruitcake (which will be blogged on shortly)— apricots, pineapples, golden raisins.

The Book Designer made a fantastic Sous-chef,

dicing the fruits into perfect ¼-inch pieces. 

(I have to mention this: her book, The Encylcopedia of the Exquisite, just won a book award!

She has such precision and attention to detail- in designing and cooking.)

You want to bake them until there is a bit of golden brown around the rim of the cake.

a day of firsts

The year's first snow day called out for some baking.

For my inaugural post, the Daughter chose meringues, which ironically are made without butter. I bit my tongue and acquiesced to her request.

The Daughter piped out the meringues.

Snowy peaks topped with crushed candy canes.

Crunch, chewy, perfect.