Preparing for Christmas

Today was pound cake day - and it is late this year. Usually, I get this lovely, smooth, rich, mellow delight ready around Halloween, wrap it carefully in waxed paper, then tin foil, and store it in a tightly sealed plastic bag in the back of the fridge (as we do not have a cool pantry). There it mellows more until Christmas week. My mother usually made an almond paste that was rolled across the top of the cake before serving but these days, I sometimes just dust it with icing sugar.
I make the pound cake the way my mother and countless other women in this province have made it for many, many decades - from a recipe in the Dutch Oven cookbook out of Lunenburg County. My book, generously turned over to me by my mother when I married, no longer has a cover. Many of the pages are either loose or free of the binding and tucked in the back of the book, and covered with stains.
My mother and I varied the recipe slightly. We put in mace, vanilla, and a great deal of brandy instead of the lemon juice and rind the more sedate lady of Lunenburg County used for her family. The brandy doesn't come through by way of taste but it keeps the dense cake from drying out and makes it richer.
But I still prepare the loaf pans in the old fashioned way by lining them with brown paper and parchment paper. After the batter is turned into the pans, a cover of brown or parchment paper is set well up over the pans and tied in place with twine. The cakes then bake in a slow oven for over two hours. And the lovely smell permeates the house for hours.


And it wouldn't be Christmas without sweet breads in the mornings - Cornish saffron bread, Chelsea buns, bubble (sometimes called monkey!) bread, etc.
The Chelsea buns were set out to rise a few days ago and baked to a golden finish, wrapped, labeled, and frozen.