Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough cake. But it needs something to replicate that familiar rum and raisin flavour that I’ve come to love so much. I’m not sure whether it’s some vanilla essence, more brown sugar or even just more rum that’s needed but there is something missing. I’m even toying with the idea of subbing some of the rum for coconut rum to see how that turns out.

RUM AND RAISIN CAKE

Ingredients
155 grams of raisins
3 liberal tablespoons of dark rum
185 grams of self-raising flour
150 grams of unsalted butter
140 grams of brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Lightly grease a deep 20cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
Soak the raisins in the rum for at least 10 minutes.
Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
Melt the butter and sugar in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and then remove from the heat.
Combine the melted butter and sugar with the rum and raisin mixture and add to the sifted flour with the beaten eggs.
Stir with a wooden spoon until combined but do not overbeat.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Serve with custard or ice cream on the side if desired.

As part of the Noice-ities theme week, Leigh and Laura are asking about your favourite winter recipe. Generally speaking, I tend to eat the same foods in winter that I would in summer. This is probably because I lack any kind of repertoire which extends to seasonal cooking as much as it has to do with a lack of a proper winter like they have down south. I have about 10-20 things that I can cook with any degree of success and fortunately, none of them seem to be any less edible in winter than they do in summer. So this makes it a bit challenging for me to pick a favourite that is more wintry than the rest. Not to mention, Rah already stole corned beef – my all time favourite comfort food that I can actually make.

So, inspired by my dinner for tonight and that it could probably suffice as a winter recipe – I vote for Chilli Con Carne. I didn’t come up with the recipe myself – it was sent to me by email and was vouched as being tried and tested many times. An email which I have stored somewhere on my computer. For reasons unknown to me, I can’t find it right now so I’ll have to make do with what’s in my memory and hope that it is right. I hope it’s right – it’s that particular memory which I’m using to make tonight’s dinner.

Cherie’s Chilli Con Carne

Much as I initially begrudged having to get Foxtel in order to get TV reception where we live, I’ve discovered that it is somewhat useful for providing some inspiration for new meal ideas. And while I’ll never be Nigella, I am learning a few new things. Like simple sometimes being better and combining fruit and savoury together can be quite acceptable. So with my new found interest for cooking something more than bottle pasta and packet burritos, I went and got a few more cookbooks from Borders. Not that I need more cookbooks – I have shelves of them that I have never opened that are hand me downs from parents and grandparents. I even have a few I’ve bought myself and never opened.

But if I hadn’t gone to Borders, I wouldn’t have found this very small cookbook called After Work Healthy by the ever reliable Australian Women’s Weekly. I generally pick my cookbooks by looking at the picture on the front, the title and a quick flick through to see if I am prepared to eat at least five recipes in there. This one passed the test, so in the shopping bag it went.

I picked out a few recipes to make this week with my new-found enthusiasm for cooking and decided that this little number would be an appropriate first test. Enough fiddly stuff to make it seem a bit special but it seemed easy enough that I probably wouldn’t stuff it up. Success was very important tonight because I am from the Homer school of cooking – if at first you don’t succeed, resign yourself to a lifetime of easy, quick prepare meals involving packets and bottles. I’m pleased to say that it was a success and although the combination of fruit and chicken in the one dish seemed unusual, the flavours matched up really well. If serving it with the fruit really puts you off, you could always serve it with roast spuds instead.