Vivi starts early (or late?) for Christmas

I've started macerating dried fruit for Black Cake, for Christmas. This is a variant of fruit cake, which you frost with fondant (in the English way). I got the recipe from the Houston Chronicle when I was there for our aunt's funeral. That recipe is one adapted by Nigella Lawson from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking. I'll bet The Bride makes a variant even closer to something cooked a hundred years ago.

(green walnuts stewing in spiced vodka for Nocino left,
and dried fruit in rum and Manischewitz right)

The black cake seems a lot like Mom's old fruit cake recipe, with the additional step of soaking the fruit in spirits before you bake the cake, then store it in liquor-soaked cheesecloth for months before eating.

I've never made it, so I won't post the recipe now. Once it's proved, maybe I will.