This is a picture of the (gluten-free, fructose-friendly) fruit mince tarts I just made. I also made Cointreau-infused whipped butter to go with them. I didn't take a photo of the butter, though, because it just looks like a big pile of yellow. Not so high up on the photogenic scale. Anyway...
Today I got my bake on, Christmas style. Christmas has always really meant something to me. Puddings made by Grandfather, impromptu Christmas concerts at home, the house smelling like fresh pine for the whole month, our dining table set with crisp linen and white china. I like multi-coloured fairy lights. I like tinsel. I like that my Mother and I would always cover every inch of living space with so much decoration that it looked like a Christmas elf had projectile vomited through the entire house. 'Scrooged' is one of my favorite movies. And I sing at the end, oh yes I do, when Bill Murray instructs us all to join in. I almost start to cry every time I watch Willie in "Bad Santa" grip that steering wheel, and speed away from the cops muttering to himself "it's Christmas and the kid's gettin' his fuckin' present". Shopping, wrapping, eating roasts with gravy (even when it's forty degrees outside), breaking open Christmas crackers, wearing stupid paper hats - I love it all. I have great affection, in particular, for the mixed spice, dried fruit and brandy combination favoured by many desserts at this time of year. In my humble opinion, those little enablers to waistline crime are seriously THE BOMB. So with this in mind, it seems strange to me in hindsight that when I was diagnosed as Allergy Girl around this time last year, that the interruption to regular programming for Christmas feasting didn't bother me at all. I guess I was so tired of feeling sick all the time, that I was simply relieved to know that by giving some things up I could put food in my mouth again without having to play a round of Mystery Stomach Wheel of Fortune ("is it going to land on Nauseous? Fine? Nooooo, it's The Runs for this little lady! Congratulations!")
But 12 months on, with a once again functioning digestive system and the knowledge that there is Life on Mars (gastronomically speaking) after a Fructose Malabsorption diagnosis, the Ghost of Christmas Treats Past has started whispering in my ear. Two weeks ago, the smell of fruit cake cut-up on a platter near the coffee machine tickled my nostrils. Last week, pictures of plum pudding with custard on magazine covers compelled my gaze to rest a fraction too long. Then finally, oh finally, the breaking point came on the weekend upon seeing fruit mince tarts in the supermarket. At that point the ghost was no longer whispering it was beating me over the head with it's chains and howling up a storm. It was the first time I found myself really lamenting that I couldn't eat regular girl food. I turned to the tarts in the gluten-free aisle in hope but I knew they contained apple before I even turned over to the ingredient list (and besides that, they would've probably tasted like little discs of powdery cork-board stuffed full of soggy bean bag filling). So torn up with the agony of my love for Christmas, but my hate for wheat and that wretched Judas of a fruit - the apple - I was left with only one option: to bake a super tasty, gluten-free, fructose-friendly fruit mince tart myself. And then eat it and eat it good.
Hence, today I did what I set out to do. I came, I saw, I kicked its arse. I made super tasty fruit mince tarts that contained neither wheat nor apple. And when those little round pockets of delicious mixed spice, dried fruit and brandy heaven had cooled just enough for me to pries them out of the tin - I picked one up and stood in the kitchen smearing large spoonfuls of Cointreau butter onto it with each bite until it was all gone. Maybe I even had another one after that.
God bless us, everyone.
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