The Fruitcake Topic

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, IowaDee said:

Don't people use nails for the same purpose in baked potatoes?  Almost sure I have even seen packages of so called "baking nails" in a Mennonite store near here.  I shall check next time we are there.

Or you could just order them here.

[IowaDee]

Well that nailed it for sure..I always thought the Amish and Mennonite ladies just used left overs from barn raisings.  They are nothing if not thrifty

 

 

 

[andiesenji]

16 hours ago, IowaDee said:

Don't people use nails for the same purpose in baked potatoes?  Almost sure I have even seen packages of so called "baking nails" in a Mennonite store near here.  I shall check next time we are there.

Yes.  And I have a giant aluminum "Texas tack"  actually supposed to be a tent peg, that I place in the center of stuffing when I put it into a bird.  It is extremely efficient at transferring heat right into the center of the stuffing so it cooks in the center and in fact, gets really crusty around the insert.  

I nuke my baked potatoes now and finish them in a hot oven so have no need for the nails but I still have them.  

It seemed so funny that Connie would recall something Aunt Maude said, when I, with my "great" memory for things like that, had so throughly forgotten it.  In fact, I barely remembered the visit.  It came at a time when I was going through a divorce and trying to work things out with my ex - he asked me to keep his daughter, who he did not want to go with him and who was just 15.  He was worried she would get pushed into the foster care system.  Aunt Maude stayed a month and to me it is mostly a blur.

I did get her to write down some recipes in a little book that I still have but haven't opened for years.  Now I have to find it.

[Toliver]

"Fruitcake From Robert Scott Expedition Is ‘Almost’ Edible at 106 Years Old"

Quote

In one of the most hostile regions known to humankind, conservationists unearthed an ice-covered fruitcake they believe once belonged to the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, the New Zealand-based Antarctic Heritage Trust said this past week.

...“There was a very, very slight rancid butter smell to it, but other than that, the cake looked and smelled edible,” she said. “There is no doubt the extreme cold in Antarctica has assisted its preservation.”

I enjoy a good fruitcake, but I will pass with this one. 

[Kerry Beal]

9 minutes ago, Toliver said:

"Fruitcake From Robert Scott Expedition Is ‘Almost’ Edible at 106 Years Old"

I enjoy a good fruitcake, but I will pass with this one. 

It would apparently be 'unethical' to eat it!

[David Ross]

Well, this morning I thought I'd be ahead of the game and bring out the fruitcake for a bath in booze.  But to my surprise, I haven't been planning properly and these two are just babies, a mere one year old pair of fruitcakes.  I suppose I'll eat one of them, but honestly, I should be at least 5 years out on aging fruitcake.  We're not sure, but we think my Great Aunt Bertie's were aged somewhere between 10 and 15 years!

 

[rotuts]

I didn't know this topic existed !

 

Id like some help :

 

quite some time ago , 

 

possibly fro Gourmet , 

 

this would have been in 1999

 

I found a Rx for fruit cake that I adopted into smaller aluminum semi-disposable forms

 

i used a large variety of Trader Joe's dried fruit , chopped up as needed

 

I lined the smaller aluminum pans w parchment and added the mix

 

It possible I have the Rx somewhere , but many HardDrives have some and gone

 

however , I remember that I baked the FC at about 300 for several hours

 

give or take

 

and what's important to me , is that the ' cake ' portion of the FC' had a good crumb and a light brown color 

 

and an incredible flavor.  brown sugar must have been involved.

 

the then let the small caked cool a bit , picked them out of the containers  which I used over and over

 

and placed them in individual plastic bags 

 

and carefully slit the tops here and there and added Booze  good quality

 

mostly Myers Rum ( dark ) but for some friends bourbon

 

about 1/2 cup / unit

 

I then let them mature for 4 - 5 months

 

and gave them away as gifts.

 

Id appreciate some help 

 

being in the Web age to try to reproduce these FC

 

Im looking for that same ' crumb ' and lower temp cooking

 

manny thanks !

 

P.S. :  no weird green candied Yuk  was ever used !

 

[Anna N]

This?

[blue_dolphin]

Or this?  Fruitcake Hater's Fruitcake

[rotuts]

thank your so much for your replies

 

Ill look them over 

 

I do remember the crumb of these cakes

 

very much suited me

 

and were not compacted

 

ande had a nice brown sugar flavor

 

the smaller aluminum pans

 

lined 

 

was my idea

 

to make them as gifts !

 

thanks for your insight

[Anna N]

5 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Or this?  Fruitcake Hater's Fruitcake

 I think yours wins just based on the slow cooking time.  But it misses by a mile on the date.   

[rotuts]

so far so good

 

i dont recall any dairy  

 

but it gives me a start

 

many thanks

 

no reason you can't keep responding 

 

[blue_dolphin]

43 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Or this?  Fruitcake Hater's Fruitcake

 

37 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 I think yours wins just based on the slow cooking time.  But it misses by a mile on the date.   

 

I found the same recipe in a few places.  One of the respondents to a Food52 query (I am looking for a fruitcake recipe...) credits it to a caterer from Detroit who had recipes published in Gourmet.  

A blogger, (Miles in Between) remembers seeing it in an old Gourmet post. 

[kayb]

A couple of years ago, I decided to try my hand at fruitcake. Being a proper Southerner, I made Eudora Welty's White Fruitcake, from the Junior League of Jackson, Miss., cookbook.

 

It was horrible. Pasty. Doughy.

 

Not wishing to trash 20 or more bucks' worth of candied fruit and nuts, I cogitated a bit, froze the fruitcake, sliced it 1/8 inch thick, and baked the slices a second time. Fruitcake biscotti. It was a hit in the Christmas baskets.

 

Ain't making it again, though.

 

[David Ross]

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2010 at 6:27 PM, David Ross said:

I use a fruitcake recipe adapted from a recipe used by the baker's of the Great Northern Railroad and served onboard their passenger trains. The most famous Great Northern train was the "Empire Builder," which still runs from Seattle-Chicago today--albeit in Amtrak colors and without any fruitcake on the Holiday menu.

I cut the ingredients by half from the original recipe, eliminate the vanilla and the port wine. The original recipe calls for all granulated sugar but I use equal parts of granulated and brown sugar. Once the fruitcake is baked, I wrap it in cheesecloth and then slug some brandy on top. The cheesecake acts like a sort of wet sponge, cloaking the cake in booze while it sits covered in a dark corner of the pantry. Please note that the fruitcake I make this year won't be ready to eat until 2011 at the earliest. I have a fruitcake stewing in brandy right now that is 3 years old.

1 pound raisins

1 pound currants

1 pound mixed glazed fruits

1 pound glazed whole cherries

1 pound candied pineapple

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups butter

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. mace

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. ground cardamom

12 eggs

1 tbsp. lemon extract

1 tbsp. vanilla extract (I cut this out)

1 tbsp. sherry or port (I cut this out)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup pecan halves

1/2 cup whole almonds, blanched

Mix raisins, currants, mixed fruits, cherries and pineapple the day before cooking and keep in a cool placed to blend flavors. (I add about 1/2 cup brandy and let the fruits macerate overnight).

Grease two 9 1/2 by 5 1/4 inch bread pans; line bottoms and sides with strips of heavy brown paper, grease paper. (This was an old-fashioned technique in the days prior to non-stick baking pans and cooking spray. I use a non-stick pan).

Lightly cream sugar, butter and salt. Add spices. Slowly stir in eggs gradually to blend; add extracts and wine. (I cut out the wine because I prefer the cake with just the flavor of brandy). Then add flour, mixing lightly. Add fruits and nuts; combine well.

Pour into prepared pans, filling them 3/4 full. Bake at 300° approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. Cool thoroughly; remove from pans. Makes about 5 pounds.

NOTE: Since oven temperatures vary, watch closely -- do not overbake.

This is the fruitcake recipe I use.  In recent years I've added dark molasses for some deeper color and another layer of sweetness.  The best fruitcake I ever had was from my dear Great Aunt Bertie Pink, a wonderful Jewish cook.  But her fruitcake recipe was never written down in full form.  I did inherit her recipe box, which includes something like 20 different fruitcake recipes, but still nothing close to her original.

[AlaMoi]

are links allowed?

 

if you're going to the trouble - the "old recipes" are much superior

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3783

[oli]

On 10/7/2017 at 11:14 AM, David Ross said:

Well, this morning I thought I'd be ahead of the game and bring out the fruitcake for a bath in booze.  But to my surprise, I haven't been planning properly and these two are just babies, a mere one year old pair of fruitcakes.  I suppose I'll eat one of them, but honestly, I should be at least 5 years out on aging fruitcake.  We're not sure, but we think my Great Aunt Bertie's were aged somewhere between 10 and 15 years!

 

 

When you say soak it, how do you do it?  Do you just pour slowly over the top?

I don't know how you do it, but my way is to do it is to inject it with a large gauge needle.

Edited October 9, 2017 by oli (log)

[andiesenji]

On 10/7/2017 at 2:33 PM, kayb said:

A couple of years ago, I decided to try my hand at fruitcake. Being a proper Southerner, I made Eudora Welty's White Fruitcake, from the Junior League of Jackson, Miss., cookbook.

 

It was horrible. Pasty. Doughy.

 

Not wishing to trash 20 or more bucks' worth of candied fruit and nuts, I cogitated a bit, froze the fruitcake, sliced it 1/8 inch thick, and baked the slices a second time. Fruitcake biscotti. It was a hit in the Christmas baskets.

 

Ain't making it again, though.

 

When I was a child, there were a few people in my huge, extended family (21 living in my grandfather's home during WWII)  who did not like traditional fruit cake.  We always had it and many types of cake for "tea" pretty much every day.  There were "special" fruitcakes for the holidays, liberally dosed with spirits and those were the ones that some people did not like. 

So we had the "Christmas cake"  which I have written about many times before.  A fruited cake made with cocoa and I have baked hundreds myself and never had anyone turn it down or say they didn't like it.  

It doesn't require aging but it keeps quite well, like many of the British type cakes, such as Dundee cake, seedy cake, etc.

 

In 2004 we had a discussion about Pork Cake and a new thread was born from the "Fruitcake" thread and I implored one of my aunts - from the other side of my family - to reveal the secret of "Meemaw's Pork Mincemeat and Christmas Cake"  (my dad's grandmother).

Here is the link to that thread  PORK CAKE which has the recipe and Viva's experience in preparing the cake, with photos.

 

After that two or three other people prepared the mincemeat and the cake and wrote about their experiences.  

 

During the intervening thirteen years I have made the mincemeat about six or seven times, canning it or freezing it and subsequently baking cakes, pies (both savory and sweet), filling for empanadas (or pasties), adding it to turkey stuffing, stuffing for a rolled pork roast, stuffing for pork chops and mixing with sausage to make patty "sliders" for sandwiches.  

 

Three years ago, before my health became iffy, I made a batch of the mincemeat and made several small loaf cakes and took them to the senior center here and distributed them to my friends, two of whom are Jewish but when I offered them alternative, non-pork cakes, they said they hadn't kept kosher for years and at their advanced ages, a small transgression could be excused.

[kayb]

I saved that recipe for mincemeat and pork cake, and always planned to try it. Never did. Now I've saved it again, and perhaps this time, will get to it.

 

Thanks.

 

[lindag]

I bought a jar of Nonesuch several years ago (it's what Mom used to use) but still haven't made a pie with it.

I seem to remember a recipe for a bar that's made with mincemeat and I think I saved the recipe in my recipe software.

[andiesenji]

1 hour ago, lindag said:

I bought a jar of Nonesuch several years ago (it's what Mom used to use) but still haven't made a pie with it.

I seem to remember a recipe for a bar that's made with mincemeat and I think I saved the recipe in my recipe software.

If you mix some finely chopped dried apples and nuts - I prefer pecans - to mincemeat, it makes a terrific filling for empanadas or little hand pies - baked - and a cream cheese pie pastry is perfect.  They keep quite well for a few weeks in a cake tin - not in an airtight plastic container.

[David Ross]

18 hours ago, oli said:

 

When you say soak it, how do you do it?  Do you just pour slowly over the top?

I don't know how you do it, but my way is to do it is to inject it with a large gauge needle.

 

I just pour some of the liquor in a large spoon then drizzle that on top of the fruitcake.  I don't follow a specific schedule, but I'd say I add liquor about 3 times a year and only about a tablespoon to each fruitcake at a time.

[andiesenji]

7 hours ago, David Ross said:

I just pour some of the liquor in a large spoon then drizzle that on top of the fruitcake.  I don't follow a specific schedule, but I'd say I add liquor about 3 times a year and only about a tablespoon to each fruitcake at a time.

If you have one of the "vintage" cake splitters, the tines are fine enough to penetrate deep into the dense cake to facilitate the absorption of the liquid without disturbing the surface of the cake too much.  I have a couple and still use them for sponge or angel food cakes.

Lehman's still sells them.

[LindaBrown1]

Thanks for the recipes.

[curls]

Finally! I have made Kerry's recipe for Phil's White fruit cakes. Definitely going to make these again! Thanks for the recipe @Kerry Beal.

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/128698-phils-white-fruitcake/