Christmas Fruitcake

Ingredients:

·      6 oz dried pruneschopped

·      6 oz dates chopped

·      8 oz dark raisins

·      6 oz golden raisins

·      6 oz currents

·      ¾ cup butter

·      1 cup dark brown sugar

·      ¾ cup molasses

·      ½ cup coffee liqueuror ½ cup strong black coffee

·      Zest and juice of 2 oranges

·      8 oz glace cherries

·      8 oz candied citrus peel

·      8 oz toasted pecans roughly chopped

·      2 tsp allspice

·      2 tsp cinnamon

·      2 tsp powdered ginger

·      1 tsp cloves

·      2 tsp nutmeg

·      3 tbsp cocoa

·      3 eggs

·      1 1/3 cups all purpose flour

·      ½ cup ground hazelnuts or almonds

·      ½ tsp baking powder

·      ½ tsp baking soda

Instructions:

1.   In a large saucepan melt the butter over medium heat and add the raisins, dates, prunes, currents, brown sugar, molasses, spices, coffee liqueur (or coffee) and the orange zest and juice.

2.   Bring to a gentle boil and very slowly simmer for 10 minutes.

3.   Remove from heat and allow to cool for 30-45 minutes.

4.   When cool stir in the beaten eggs.

5.   Sift together, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda.

6.   Add the ground nuts and fold through the boiled mixture. Fold in cherries, citrus peel and pecans. Pour into prepared baking pan. You can decorate the top with additional pecan halves, cherries etc., if you like.

7.   Bake at 300 degrees F for 1 ½ to 2 hours depending upon the size of your pan. Mine took the full two hours in a 10 inch spring form pan.The cake should feel firm to the touch at the center and a wooden toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. The cake should be cooled completely in the pan on a wire rack before removing.

8.   At this point you can poke small holes in the top and bottom of the cake with a fork and pour on 4 ounces of dark rum or your favorite whiskey, half on the top, wait ten minutes, then flip it over and pour the remaining half on the bottom.

9.   Soak several layers of cheesecloth in additional rum if you like and wrap completely around the cake, then cover with several layers of plastic wrap and store in a COOL place.

10.     When serving, you can add a layer of marzipan or if you have decorated the top with fruit and nuts, brush with a simple glaze of equal parts water and sugar boiled together for about 10-15 minutes.

 

Buttered Rum Christmas Cake

Serves 15-20

 

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

225g light muscovado sugar

4 large eggs, beaten

225g plain flour

2 tsp ground mixed spice

zest 1 small orange

85 pecans or walnuts, toasted, then roughly chopped

 

For the fruit

150ml cloudy apple juice

50g unsalted butter

2 tbsp maple syrup

5 tbsp dark rum

800g mixed dried fruit (the kind that includes mixed peel)

175g dried cranberries 

2 tbsp dark rum

1 tbsp maple syrup

Preparation:

1.    Start with the fruit. Pour the apple juice into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the butter, let it melt, then take off the heat and add the syrup and rum. Put the mixed fruit and cranberries into a large bowl, pour over the hot rum mix, then cover tightly with cling film and leave overnight.

2.    The next day, heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and double-line a 20cm round, deep cake tin with non-stick baking parchment. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and pale, then gradually beat in the eggs until light and fluffy. If the mix starts to split or look lumpy, add 1 tbsp of the flour and keep beating. Sift in the flour, spices and 1/4 tsp salt, and fold in using a large spoon. Fold in the orange zest, nuts, soaked fruit and soaking liquid.

3.    Spoon the batter into the tin, level the top, then make a slight dimple in the middle using the back of the spoon. Bake for 1 hr 30 mins, then reduce oven to 140C/120C fan/gas 1 and bake for a further 1 hr 45 mins or until it has risen, is a dark golden colour and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Put the tin on a cooling rack and leave until warm.

4.    To feed the cake the first time, use a cocktail stick to poke all over the top of the warm cake. Stir together the rum and maple syrup, then slowly spoon over the cake. Cool completely, then remove the baking parchment, wrap loosely in clean baking parchment and store in an airtight tin. Feed the cake every week to 10 days until you decorate it.

5.    To cover, ice and decorate your cake, see 'goes well with' for instructions on how to make our Midwinter candle cake, Sparkly bauble cake or Sparkling snowfetti cake.

Sarah Angelina Acland

Saarah Angelina ("Angie") Acland was born on 26 June 1849  and passed away on 2 December 1930. She was an English amateur photographer, known for her portraiture and as a pioneer of colour photography.  She was credited by her contemporaries with inaugurating colour photography "as a process for the travelling amateur", by virtue of the photographs she took during two visits to Gibraltar in 1903 and 1904. She visited Madeira during the early 20th century where she stayed at the Reid’s Hotel. She took many photographs in and around the location of the hotel. The hotel had a darkroom for use by guests.

Sarah Acland was the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth Acland, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, and Sarah Acland, after whom the Acland Hospital in Oxford was named.

As a child, Sarah Acland was photographed by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson with her friend Ina Liddell, the sister of Alice Liddell.  At the age of 5, she and one of her brothers presented a trowel to Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Chancellor of Oxford University, at the laying of the foundation stone for the Oxford University Museum. The art critic John Ruskin taught her art and she also knew a number of the Pre-Raphaelites. She even assisted Dante Gabriel Rossetti when he was painting murals at the Oxford Union.

At the age of 19, Acland met and was influenced by photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Ackland took portraits and landscapes. For example, she took a portrait photograph of the Prime Minister William Gladstone during a visit by him to Oxford. 

Acland started to experiment with colour photography in 1899. Her earliest work was accomplished using the Ives Kromskop and Sanger Shepherd colour processes, in which three separate photographs were taken through red, green, and blue filters. In 1903 Acland visited her brother Admiral Acland at his home in Gibraltar. Acland took photographs of Europa Point looking out from Europe to Africa, pictures of flora in the Admiral's residence, The Mount, and the author and ornithologist Colonel William Willoughby Cole Verner. In 1904, she exhibited at the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain with 33 three-colour prints under the title The Home of the Osprey, Gibraltar.

She later used the Autochrome process of the Lumiere brothers, introduced in 1907. In her later life after the death of her father, until her death in 1930, Sarah Acland lived in Park Town, North Oxford, taking many colour photographs there.

Sarah Acland was a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS) and the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

She never married, and in 1901, the year after her father's death, she moved to Clevedon House, now 10 Park Town, Oxford, where she died in 1930. A blue plaque was dedicated to her on this house on 24 July 2016.

A collection of Acland's photographs is housed at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. The Bodleian Library in Oxford has catalogues of her photograph albums and papers, dating from the late 19th century.

The Madeira Optics Museum

The Madeira Optics Museum - also known as Museu de Óptica da Madeira - is a specialized museum located in Funchal, Madeira Island that showcases a permanent collection of optics related devices. The museum has a small antique shop at the entrance, where the visitor may by optics related devices.

The Collectors

A dream of two collectors – a father and a son – comes to life.

In the 1960’s, the passion for engineering and history lead one person, Rui Aguilar, to start acquiring optical devices. Initially, without a defined purpose, the collection kept growing.

Forty years later, a massive 2000 piece optical device collection was stored in a garage. The interest in the collection passed on to his son, Sergio Aguilar, who spent his time rediscovering these antiques from old storage boxes.

With objects ranging from the 17th Century until late 20th Century, every optical device had some sort of significance in the collection. It became more than obvious that the collection had to be shared.

When the idea of the museum popped up in 2014, there was an unstoppable effort of cataloging and organizing the collection, as well as a considerable increase in the amount of objects that were added.

The Collection

The collection includes:

Telescopes (about 50), with emphasis on:

• One of the oldest (18th Century) metal mirror Newtonian telescope
• The biggest (14 inch handmade dobsonian)
• A 14″ Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain, the most advanced in Madeira Island.

Binoculars (over 400), most notably:

• Galilean binoculars
• Keplerian with erecting lenses
• Prismatic with “roof” prisms
• Prismatic with “porro” prisms

Film cameras and projectors (around 150)

• 35mm, 16mm, 9.5mm, Super8 and 8mm formats

Photographic cameras (about 650), notably:

• Plate cameras from the end of the XIX century.
• Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) Cameras such as Rolleiflex, Yashica and Minolta
• Single Lens Reflex (SLR) Cameras such as Nikon, Canon, Pentax
• Folding Cameras
• Instant cameras (from first to last)
• Box Cameras
• Rangefinder cameras such as Leica
• Micro cameras (HIT, Arrow, Mycro and similar)
• “System” cameras such as Hasselblad, Mamiya and Fuji.

Medical related optical devices like

• Phoropters
• Lensmeters
• Ophthalmoscopes

Biology area optical devices like binocular and monocular microscopes and accessories

• Antique and modern monocular microscopes
• Antique and modern binocular (mono and stereo) microscopes
• Preparations and other accessories

Army equipment

• Night vision goggles
• Heavy duty rangefinders and periscopes from armored vehicles
• Aiming scopes

Topography equipment

• Theodolites
• Dumpy levels

Location:

The Madeira Optics Museum is located in Funchal, just 5 minutes from the City Hall.

Entrance Fees:

Adults: 5€

Young (10-17 years inc.): 3€

Crianças (up to 9 years inc.): Free

Schedule:

Weekdays: 10:00-12:30, 13:30-17:30

Saturdays: 10:00-13:00

Sundays and Public Holidays: Call to Schedule

Address:

Rua das Pretas, 51

9000-049 Funchal

00 351 961822358

00 351 291220694