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hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 02:24 PM Nov 2014

OK - serious fruitcake questions:

I make my fruitcake using real dried fruit soaked in Irish mist (Thompson raisins, Red Gold raisins, Zante currants, Bing and Rainier cherries and diced apricots), a honey based batter and lots of spices.

So - this is the first year I've been organized to make the cake well ahead of time.

How early should I make it?

I generally soak the finished product with more Irish Mist. If I make the cake several weeks before Christmas, do I wrap the cake? In what?

I have a couple bottles of German Kirsch liquor. Any advice on a recipe (cake or cookies) using dried cherries and the liquor?

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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uppityperson

(115,674 posts)
1. I have made it 6 months ahead, wrap it in waxed paper after done soaking it. If it dried out as 1
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 02:45 PM
Nov 2014

did, then add more alcohol to it, let it sit a couple days before eating.

Traditionally wrap in waxed paper and put in a container that is not air tight, but tight enough to prevent all the alcohol from evaporating.

I made a couple like your recipe and ate them a year later, still good, but had kept it in the frig in waxed paper. Dried cherries, nuts, raisens, pineapple, brandy were my main ingredients

hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
2. Has anyone an opinion about using parchment paper instead of waxed paper?
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 03:00 PM
Nov 2014

Thanks for the tip on waxed paper though - I hadn't thought of that.

PADemD

(4,482 posts)
3. Cheesecloth
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 04:23 PM
Nov 2014

Last edited Sat Nov 1, 2014, 06:20 PM - Edit history (1)

My grandmother wrapped her fruitcake in soaked cheesecloth, then aluminum foil, and placed in an air-tight tin. The cheesecloth is easy to peel off. Your fruitcake sounds heavenly. I never liked the candied fruit she used to use.

2theleft

(1,136 posts)
5. That is exactly how my mom does them.
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 06:12 PM
Nov 2014

Then puts the tins in the attic (or basement) where it's cool.

hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
8. I usually use walnuts, but my consultants feel that almonds will be a
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 10:44 PM
Nov 2014

better match for the fruits I've chosen.

I think there are dozens of variations of fruitcake recipes. I recall my mother trying out one that produced 6 or 8 cakes!

dem in texas

(2,672 posts)
7. Used to make Fruit cake every year.
Sat Nov 1, 2014, 10:29 PM
Nov 2014

I used a recipe from the old 1960's Joy of cooking, called for grape jelly and whiskey in the batter. I'd make the cakes the first of November. After they were baked, I'd wrap them in strips of old clean sheets soaked in wine and store in tins until time to wrap for Xmas gifts. The cakes were always good and moist.

freshwest

(53,661 posts)
9. Oh, that must have been wonderful for gifts. I loved fruitcake for the holidays, and mincemeat pie.
Sun Nov 2, 2014, 02:52 AM
Nov 2014

Some people dislike the fruitcake, but I think it's different from anything else. I loved pound cake made without leavening the way my family did, the eggs did the leavening and they were very moist. Made with butter, too, and some lemon. Haven't been able to find a recipe for that version. Most store bought pound cake gives me heartburn, I don't know why. We used to make then in Bundt pans and they had a great golden brown crust.

Fortinbras Armstrong

(4,473 posts)
11. Fruitcakes can be made up to a year ahead.
Sun Nov 2, 2014, 10:57 AM
Nov 2014

In Victorian England, wedding cakes were fruitcakes, and it was traditional for the couple to keep some of it and eat it on their first anniversary.

On the last Sunday before Advent (generally the last Sunday in November) the Collect prayer for the day in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer began "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people", and "Stir Up Sunday" was the traditional day to make Christmas puddings and cakes. My father always made a large recipe, and some he steamed for pudding, and some he baked for cakes.

The late Robert Farrar Capon wrote an excellent piece for the New York Times entitled "Fruitcakes: Solid Evidence Of Christmas" in which he bemoans the modern commercial fruitcake:

It is with fruitcakes that the tendency has gotten completely out of hand. Putatively, they originated from some cook's playful desire either to bake a plum pudding or to elaborate a plain raisin cake. Shortly after that the mischief began. Not content with such reasonable additions as candied orange, lemon and citron peel, misguided souls began tossing in apricots, cherries (both the repulsive red and the alarming green varieties) and, finally, pineapple (available in an entire palette of unnatural hues).

Nor was that the end. The thought of adding nuts - substances that are almost as subject to abuse as fruits - was more of a temptation than humankind could bear. So in they went, walnuts first, to establish the beachhead, and then the whole unrestrainable horde: pecans, almonds, brazils, macadamias, cashews, even pignolis.

Needless to say, this omnium gatherum approach created a problem. Since the public would be unwilling to purchase fruitcakes of a size large enough to contain all of these ingredients - and since making them smaller would raise the probability that a given fruit or nut might not find its way into a given cake - the purveyors of fruitcakes found themselves forced to choose between the two basic components of their product. The cake, of course, lost, giving rise to the now omnipresent and unavoidable holiday gift: the fruit brick.

In recent studies by the physics departments of major universities, the atomic weight of this remarkable confection has been calculated to be just below that of uranium.


He end with a good recipe for a home-made fruitcake:

1 pound butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup Cognac
1 box (15 1/2 ounces, 2 1/2 cups) seedless raisins
1 box (10 ounces, 2 cups) dried currants
1/2 cup candied orange peel
1/2 cup candied lemon peel
1/2 cup candied citron peel.

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together and fold into mixture. Add vanilla, Cognac and all fruits and mix well.

3. Pour into well-buttered tube pan or into small loaf pans and bake 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until inserted cake tester comes out clean.

4. Allow to cool somewhat and remove from pan. Glaze while still warm with confectioners' sugar-and- water icing to which a little grated lemon rind has been added.

Yield: 1 large fruitcake or 6 small loaf cakes.
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