holiday cakes

[mignardise]

Any great holiday cake recipes.................?

I'm thinking early this year.

One pan cakes....Pound cakes, bundt cakes, tube pans, anything with Pumpkin, or apples for Thanksgiving, eggnog for Xmas, etc.......

Thanks.

[andiesenji]

Any great holiday cake recipes.................?

I'm thinking early this year.

One pan cakes....Pound cakes, bundt cakes, tube pans, anything with Pumpkin, or apples for Thanksgiving, eggnog for Xmas, etc.......

Thanks.

←

I posted this recipe on the "Fruitcake" topic but here it is again. There are also some other good recipes on that thread, not only fruitcake, as this is not a true "fruitcake" per se...

I get the cocoa at King Arthur flour co. It just makes it so much better than the supermarket stuff. Once you use it, yo will not be satisfied with the regular stuff.

This is my cocoa fruit cake.

I have recreated this from a recipe written in difficult-to-read, spidery handwriting in the journal of an ancestor with the entry dated 1690.

It is important to use Dutch process cocoa. I use King Arthur Flour's Double Dutch Cocoa and Black Cocoa Half and Half.

When glazed with the glaze at the end of the recipe, this cake will keep for several days at room temp and will stay incredibly moist with just a loose cover.

I have in the past made this cake ahead of time and wrapped it well in Aluminum foil and kept it in a cool place for 6 or more weeks. However I now live alone. When my family was still all together, I could not keep it more than a couple of days......to give you an idea of the way things used to be, the original "receipt" called for 6 pounds of twice-boulted flour and 3 full pound loaves of sugar well beaten..... 2 pounds of butter and 3 dozen eggs. I have cut it down to a manageable size.

FRUITED COCA CAKE original recipe ca. 1690

1 cup BUTTER unsalted

1-1/2 tsp SALT kosher

1 tsp CINNAMON ground

1 tsp CLOVES, ground

1 tsp NUTMEG, ground

1 tsp ALLSPICE, ground

6 Tbsp COCOA, Dutch process

3 cups superfine SUGAR

4 large EGGS

3 Tsp BAKING SODA

4 cups, sifted FLOUR

1-1/2 cups CURRANTS

1-1/2 cups DRIED CHERRIES

1-1/2 cups WALNUTS, chopped or pecans or macadamia nuts, etc.

3 cups APPLESAUCE, unsweetened chunky style if you can find it.

Preheat oven to 350 F

Grease and flour a deep 11" x 15" pan or 2 10-inch square pans or 2 holiday mold pans.

In a large mixing bowl cream together butter, salt, spices, cocoa and sugar. beat until smooth.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after adding each one.

Mix baking soda with flour. reserve 2 heaping tablespoons of the flour.

Instead of sifting the flour you can simply put it in a large bowl and run a wire whisk through it which does the same as sifting, i.e. fluffing it up a bit.

Add flour to batter alternately with applesauce.

Sprinkle the fruit and nuts with the reserved flour and fold into cake batter.

Pour batter into pan and bake for about 1 hour or until cake tests done. (deeper pans will require longer baking.

ORANGE GLAZE

GRATED PEEL OF 2 ORANGES

1/3 CUP SUGAR

1/4 CUP WATER

1 CUP ORANGE JUICE

3 TABLESPOONS GRAND MARNIER LIQUOR OR BRANDY

Combine ingredients in saucepan, bring to simmer, stirring constantly, continue cooking until liquid is reduced by 1/2. Drizzle over cake ( I use a turkey baster and a perforated spoon as the glaze is too hot to dip my fingers into which is usually the way I drizzle icing . After the glaze has set, decorate edges of the cake and the plate edges with powdered sugar sifted thru a fine strainer.

Edited October 18, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[melonpan]

andiesenji, you should fix your original file!

the cherries called for in this recipe is 1 1/2 cups...

[Abra]

That looks like a beautiful-tasting cake, Andie. Could I make it in smaller pans, like those small wooden loaf pans that make such good gifts?

[mignardise]

Thank you for having the energy to post.

I am not too fond of fruit cakes.

I'm looking for some good ole' moist one pan(tube) cakes, such as pound cakes.

Bundt type cakes, maybe with rum and any liqueur for the holidays.

Especially something special for Thanksgiving coming up. Using pecans, or currants, and cranberries. Or, apple spice cake. Anyone have a favorite tried and true you would like to share.

THANKS!!

[andiesenji]

That looks like a beautiful-tasting cake, Andie.  Could  I make it in smaller pans, like those small wooden loaf pans that make such good gifts?

←

I use the paper "pans" like these from King Arthur - haven't tried the wood ones.

And this is not in any way a traditional type of fruitcake.

If you check the "Fruitcake" topic, melonpan made it and baked it in small loaves and has posted a photo.

It is dark with cocoa and moist and rich. I have yet to find anyone who does not like it.

Edited October 18, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[Foodie_Penguin]

My Mum, back in the UK, made me a Christmas cake and it arrived in the mail on Saturday. It's a mother of a cake for two people! It must weigh at least 5lbs.

I don't know the recipe she used except I'm sure that it's the recipe she has always used. She poured rum into the finished fruitcake before she put on the marzipan and icing.

She made the marzipan from scratch as well as the royal icing. I'm surprised that the cake arrived intact but she packed it well and I'm not sure that I could wait till Christmas to tuck into it. I think I might offer it at Thanksgiving.

Foodie Penguin

[jgarner53]

I have a good recipe for a quince pound cake (made in a bundt pan) if you're looking for something slightly out of the ordinary.

other recipes that come to mind:

Almond cake

Chocolate stout cake

They're all at home. Let me know if you'd like any of them.

Edited to add: I made a great walnut applesauce cake over the weekend, too. The instructions call for a 9x13, but I divided it into smallish loaf pans instead because they're going to different people, and it came out fine. It's iced with a honey cream cheese icing. That one, I think is from Nick Malgieri's Perfect Cakes.

Edited October 18, 2004 by jgarner53 (log)

[ladyyoung98]

well...i ran across a recipe for chocolate pumpkin cheesecake in a womans magazine recently that sounded great ..have not tried it yet...but u may want to go look at it.. its in the womans day november 1 issue for this year on page

103 ...it looks like heaven...there is also a nice picture of it on the front cover

Edited October 18, 2004 by ladyyoung98 (log)

[Redsugar]

Mignardise, et.al. – Although the recipes I am posting in this entry are much less rich than the grand Cocoa Cake provided by Andie (above), they are nonetheless authentic Holiday specialties. Two weeks ago, I researched and collated recipes for about 20 celebration yeast breads that are national favorites from many European countries; I look forward to baking at least a dozen of them in December – including a Vaňočka braid for a Slovak friend of mine. October isn’t too early to begin one’s planning for Holiday fare.

Boquanran Cherry Cake

This cake is traditionally served on Scottish New Year’s Eve, along with other sweets such as Black Bun & Hogmanay Biscuits.

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

8 ounces butter

1¼ cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1½ cups candied cherries

2 Tbsp flour

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Heat oven to 375°. Sift together first three ingredients; set aside. Cream together butter & sugar.

Beat eggs; add alternatively with flour mixture to butter-sugar mixture, beating well after each addition.

Toss cherries with 2 Tbsp flour and add to batter. Stir in lemon juice.

Spread batter in 9- x 5- inch loaf pan that’s been brush with clarified butter & dusted with flour. Bake for 70 minutes, or until golden brown on top and firm to touch. Cool in pan for 5-10 minutes, then turn out onto wire grid to cool.

Medivnyk (Ukrainian Honey Cake)

This cake is often made with Canadian prairie buckwheat honey, but regular clover honey would be very pleasant, too. No icing required, just a good dusting of powdered sugar.

1 cup best-quality liquid honey

4 ounces unsalted butter

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

4 large eggs, separated

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp each baking powder & salt

1 tsp cinnamon (or ginger)

8 fl. oz. dairy sour cream

½ cup chopped walnuts and/or raisins

Bring honey up to the boil; cool to room temp. Cream butter & sugar. Add yolks individually; beat in honey.

Combine flour, soda, baking powder, spice, and salt; blend in alternatively with sour cream. Stir in nuts and/or raisins. Fold in egg whites (beaten to stiff, but not dry, peaks) – first a third, then the remainder.

Turn batter into a spray-coated 10-inch Bundt form. Bake for about 1 hour, or until tester comes out clean. Cool in pan 8-10 minutes, then remove to wire grid to cool completely.

[andiesenji]

Those sound absolutely delicious. I have copied the recipes and plan to try at least one.