10.20.24
It was a good day for soaping yesterday. Not too warm outside whereby one felt guilty staying inside instead of wrapping up some of the leftover outside chores needing to be done before winter arrives, but a good inside chore day. I was in need of having such a day as quite a few of my soap storage boxes were down to a mere couple of bars in them and some were just plain old empty! As much as I tend to dislike thinking of the holidays so early in the year, when it comes to soap it is wise to start filling my drying table early! It will not be too long now, and the Christmas orders will start trickling in.
I love making soap. There is something so rewarding to see the filled to the brim moulds nicely lined up, the soap ready to be turned out and sliced into bars, all 52 pounds of it! Swirls of colour on the outside of the blocks hint at what one will find once the slicing begins. It is almost like opening a present, you never quite know what the inside will reveal. Will the swirling colour come out as you had planned, or will it be a mishmash of blah colour with no excitement at all? The scents that fill the living room range from the exotic smell of pure jasmine to the distinctive freshness of anise essential oil in our Fisherman’s Friend soap. Mixed in with these smells is a hint of rose and now and then a waft of a warm, almost musky aroma from a scent called Kentucky Bourbon takes over.
Goodness me! Our first holiday bazaar will be here in less than a month! Folks are already thinking ahead on the shopping front as orders are starting to trickle in. Somehow, I always tend to be the one whose Christmas packages get shipped off late to family and friends. I have every good intention of being one of those well organized early shoppers that has all my ducks in a row, but alas so often my thoughts and actual deeds seldom match up. That is okay, better late than never as the old saying goes!
Now that things are more or less buttoned up for the coming winter on the farm, it will be time for me to turn my attention to other seasonal chores. Large bales of hay are neatly stacked in the arena ready for winter feeding, Darrell has the woodsheds filled to the brim, the calves weaned from their mums, and the extra steers not destined for butcher taken to the saleyard. Now is the time to start thinking of putting effort into one of our popular seasonal treats… Christmas cake!
With a major soaping day done, while those bars sit on the drying table for a while before more will be made, it is time to turn my attention to the making of our traditional English Christmas cakes. I have been making these rich cakes for more years than I care to remember using an old recipe from one of the English cookery books my dear aunty Kay gave me many, many years ago when I was a young girl. Filled to the brim with currants, raisins, sultanas, slivered almonds and all manner of other delicacies then liberally doused with sherry and rum, this cake when properly stored will last an entire year, maybe! I say maybe because each year I set aside an 8” cake for us, all wrapped up tightly in greaseproof paper and tinfoil and stored in its own special cake tin in the pantry. Every now and then I cut off a wedge for the smaller tin in the kitchen, tightly rewrapping the remaining cake and placing it once again in its special tin on the pantry shelf. By this time of the year, a mere morsel of the original six-pound cake resides inside the big Christmas cake tin. A sliver kept aside for last minute munching before this year’s freshly baked cake will replace it and be ready to sample at Christmastime and beyond.
Soon, instead of the mixture of floral scents that pervade the living room after a soaping session, the aroma of Christmas cakes baking in the oven will fill the house with that unmistakable rich, warm spiciness that heralds the holidays are not too far off. As orders for this seasonal treat start coming in, a shelf in the pantry will be dedicated to holding the cake rounds while they mature. There they will sit, all nicely wrapped up tight, awaiting their final dousing of sherry before being shipped off to their new owners for holiday enjoyment. Ranging in size from small 5” cakes up to our large 8” ones, I must say it is a rewarding sight to see! Yet in our own special cake tin on a separate shelf in the pantry, a well wrapped cake will soon take up residence especially for us. A special seasonal treat, to be savoured throughout the coming year.
