Maraschino Cherries

Maraschino Cherries, the real kind, are fun and easy to make.

First, you need a cherry pitter:
We got this sweet Oxo brand cherry pitter.

Next, pit a bunch of cherries. It takes like 5 minutes to pit enough of them to fit two of the jars like you see above.

Loosely pack in the cherries into a sterilized jar. Cover with Maraschino Liquor. Put in your fridge for a few weeks and they are a ready to go.

Perfect for all your liquored fruit needs, like your Old Fashioned.

Fruitcakes!!!

Clearly, I've been busy lately. I'm giving food for Christmas gifts this year to friends, so I have to have a lot to hand out. Plus, I want it for me!

I love good fruitcake. We were at Lunds today, they had tiny fruitcakes, without alcohol, with nasty candied fruits for $9.99. OUTRAGEOUS. So, I made my own
I mostly used Alton Brown's Free Range Fruitcake. I love Alton. If anyone is looking for a gift for me, an Alton Brown book would be perfect.

To start, take all the dried fruit, the fruit peels, and your rum, mix it, and stick it in the fridge for at least 24 hours. Stir from time to time.

Next, put it all in a pot with sugar and apple juice.

Add butter


Grind up your spices
and throw them in to the pot.

At this time, it needs to come to a boil, so, I opened a bottle of wine.

After it does the boiling thing, it has to cool for a while. I started another project, which we will get to in the next post.

Once cooled, stir in the dry ingredients

And eggs


Your batter looks like this
I added nuts to it too.

Put in a pan and cook.

Once it comes out, you immediately douse with brandy.

Once completely cool, I covered them (I doubled the recipe) with cheese cloth and doused again with brandy. They are stored in Tupperware containers and will be doused with brandy every few days until Christmas. Nummy.