Deep Chocolate Rosebuds and Fruitcake

FYI 

The pictures keep half disappearing. If anyone knows how to fix this I'd be very appreciative.

These are good, really good.  Even with the mistake of leaving the cream out of the ganache.  I must learn to pay attention to how many servings these desserts make because it made six.  Six!  I would have doubled it.  Suffice it to say there is much negotiating amongst the populace on who gets what.

Fruitcake has to be my most favorite cake to make.  Maybe it's the cheery glaceed fruit tumbling around in rum for weeks on end.  Or the toasting of the pecans and walnuts.  The simple ingredients that feel more like a craft project being assembled together than a dessert.  I love the crunch crunch sound the Kitchen Aid makes with the final stir up.  Most surprising of all is how Rose's fruitcake recipe puts all fruitcake jokes to shame.

I opted for little mini bundt cakes with the intention of handing a few out as gifts, along with Joe Pastry's fruitcake story and a sweet little book, The Best Christmas Present in the World, which is actually based in fact.  Hopes were high, especially as the amazing new Instant Read Thermometer Prize from across the pond takes this temperature business to a whole new level.  I'm hooked!  Leaving it set to Celsius instead of switching it to Fahrenheit is giving the girls a chance to understand measurement differences.  Hopefully it will demystify it a bit so chemistry won't seem so daunting down the road.

My fruitcakes were thwarted two fold.  A) I forgot to turn down the oven twenty five degrees for the dark pan.  Blast!  Not completely burned but a bit over done.  B) The pans on the upper rack was unbeknownst to me, precariously perched.  My husband, who never quite understood the odd way the racks slide in for safety, shoved it in.  When I pulled the tray of individual molds out, they literally went to rack and ruin on the floor.  Poor little things!  A moment of silence was in order.  Still, the surviving cakes are delicious, didn't over bake and there's no way they'll make it to Christmas.

I did just watch  fruitcake being make on PBS in a spring form pan and it looked very promising for Rose's fruitcake next year.