Christmas cake

[helenjp]

I'm planning to cook this year's Christmas cake (fruit cake) in New Zealand and take it back to Japan with me, rather than take back all sorts of ingredients.

Only one problem: I don't want to buy a bottle of brandy, rum, or bourbon for a single cake, and I think that polishing off the remainder may be a little beyond me!

I'd like to use a stout or other dark beer instead, but notice that nobody proposes beer for long-keeping fruit cakes. I have used ginger ale in the past, so I'm tempted to think it might succeed...

So. does anybody have a recipe for fruit cake using some form of beer, which they have found successful (apart from boiled fruit cake, which I do make, but which I am not sure would keep for 4 months???)?

[jackal10]

Sure. Just substitute beer for brandy or rum to soak the fruit in my recipe http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1395.h...cfdf367bc23142d

By the time its cooked the yeast will be inactive.

I would still anoint it with spirits, though if you anoint it at all.

[chefpeon]

Isn't the brandy or rum an important part of the flavor of an aged fruitcake? I'd think leaving it out, or substituting it with beer would be detrimental.

Don't they sell the smaller sizes of liquor in NZ? Here in the states, the liquor stores sell even the "airplane" sizes of liquors......

[helenjp]

Supermarkets don't seem to sell hard liquor at all, and the liquur stores = BULK sales!

As Jackal10 says, I could bake with beer and pour spirits over later (when I'm back in Japan). That sounds like a good compromise!

[BarbaraY]

I would sub sherry or even fruit juice rather than beer, Or you could you buy a small bottle like a 1/2 pint (hard to find lately) and give the remainder to a friend before you leave?

[jackal10]

I've known people soak the fruit in strong tea...

[helenjp]

I've made beer fruit cakes before, and the finished cake doesn't taste beery. I feel that the best option is hard liquor, because of the alcohol and sugar content; the second best option is a carbonated soft drink such as ginger ale (works very well), and then fruit juice, preferably citrus.

Fruit loaves (pound-cake base) with tea-soaked fruits are nice, but I found the fruit absorbed a lot of water...maybe the sugar content of other soaking liquids prevents the fruit from becoming over-soft and pulpy when soaked?

[andiesenji]

I've made beer fruit cakes before, and the finished cake doesn't taste beery. I feel that the best option is hard liquor, because of the alcohol and sugar content; the second best option is a carbonated soft drink such as ginger ale (works very well), and then fruit juice, preferably citrus.

Fruit loaves (pound-cake base) with tea-soaked fruits are nice, but I found the fruit absorbed a lot of water...maybe the sugar content of other soaking liquids prevents the fruit from becoming over-soft and pulpy when soaked?

←

Over the years I have come across a number of recipes for steamed puddings, fruitcakes and etc., made with Porter or Stout. I believe that Guinness published a cookbook quite a few years back using Guinness.

Somewhere in my loose recipes I have one for a delicious bread and butter pudding that uses a particular Yorkshire product, Old Peculiar, which is a bit sweeter than Guinness.

I also have a recipe for walnuts (pecans also work) which are boiled in stout or porter, drained, sprinkled with a little salt and sugar then placed in the oven and dried till crisp. Very tasty, eaten alone or used in cakes, cookies or tossed in a salad.

If you type "Guinness Cake" into your browser search window, you will get a list of several recipes.

Here is a recipe for Chocolate stout cake

Read the reviews from people who tried it.

Edited August 29, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[helenjp]

Thanks andiesenji! I have made Guinness and Porter cakes in the past, they're surprisingly good, but always seem a bit light in texture for a long-keeping cake. I like that nuts in beer idea!

I notice from one of my mother's old recipe books that she added 1-2 tsp glycerine when soaking dried fruit in anything non-alcoholic. But then she was a pharmacist, and there are quite a few unusual things in her recipe books!

Edited August 30, 2005 by helenjp (log)

[andiesenji]

Glycerine is hydrophyllic. That is, it combines instantly with water. If you want to experiment, rub some on your hands - it will be sticky until you allow a little water to run over your hands and just like that the glycerine on the surface is gone.

It is used as a sweetener in some things and as a preservative - as in some medicines where alcohol cannot be used.

Many of the herbal concoctions in liquid form are preserved in glycerine.

Adding it to fruit juice in which you soak dried fruits helps with preservation and also allows the fruit to absorb more of the moisture because the glycerine has the effect of making the liquid "wetter" - a rather simplistic term but I can't explain the chemical properties technically.

Look for glycerine in the larger bottles usually near the mineral oil, Milk of Magnesia, etc., much less expensive than the little dropper bottles. I keep it in a squeeze bottle with a tight cap on the top or even better, one with a one-way valve.

[anzu]

My mother makes Australian Christmas cake every year. She never uses alcohol (the fruit is rehydrated with tea). This includes no alcohol in the batter, and no alcohol poured onto the cake later. I've kept the cake for about six months without problems, and my brother has kept it for a year (he may have added alcohol himself later, but I doubt it).

Coming at the same issue from a different angle, couldn't you use those miniature bottles of alcohol rather than buying a whole large one?

[helenjp]

andiesenji, thanks for all the details on glycerine.

Anzu, I couldn't get those miniatures, which started me down the beer track.

Anyway, I made two cakes, both with fruit soaked in stout, and one with Guinness over the top after baking (the other will be soaked with other liquors at home in Japan).

I was cautious in applying the post-baking stout, and did a little at a time, but it seems to be in good shape.

The Guinness-soaked cake was intended for a fellow NZer in Japan, but he turned up in NZ too, so off he went back to Japan with the cake in his luggage, and strict instructions to keep his hands off it until the weather cools!

[ange]

If you are making a rich fruit cake, brandy is the only booze that will ensure the cake will keep for a long time. Any booze can be used, but its brandy that will ensure a long life. Can you not buy a little bottle, like you get on airplanes? They often sell them in large bottleshops. I personally wouldn't try beer, the brandy makes them taste fabulous, anything else wouldnt be the same. cheers.

[culinary bear]

Adding 50-100ml of brandy to a large fruit cake is, if you'll excuse my directness, going to do pretty much bugger all with reference to the keeping qualities of the cake.

Rich fruit cakes keep because :

1) they're hygroscopic and don't lose moisture if wrapped well.

2) they have a sugar content high enough to inhibit the growth of microorganisms

3) my girlfriend doesn't like them, and hence doesn't eat them.

As regards beer in cakes, as long as you sensibly take note of the difference in volume between using beer and using spirits / fortified wines, adjusting the recipe accordingly, you should be fine.

My particular favourite is made with Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, a shockingly hoppy and bitter 7.5%abv version of normal bottled guinness. It gives a pleasingly sticky, malty and long-keeping cake.