The Supreme eG Pastry and Baking Challenge (Round 8)

[SweetSide]

It's hard to believe, but week 7 has passed and it's time to find out the new challenge! I've had enough of corn to last me until next summer....

I feel like keeping this on a holiday theme, and going back to the style of the Round 1 challenge -- updating a classic. That's not to say that all the other challenges haven't been interesting with fantastic results.

This week, I challenge alanamoana to take FRUITCAKE out of the land of misfits! Take it apart, turn it around, deconstruct it, reconstruct it, but remove the stigma and show us the beauty that lies within. (Am I in the minority? -- I actually like fruitcake despite its bad reputation.)

So, I am pleased to present our next contestant -- alanamoana, a pastry chef and instructor in northern California.

Prior Challenges:

Round 1 (Kerry Beal challenges Ling in Vancouver BC)- Take pineapple upside down cake and bring it into this century

Round 2 (Ling Challenges Gfron1 in Silver City NM) - Make a dessert containing an animal ingredient or product other than lard or bacon

Round 3 (Gronf1 challenges Mette in Copenhagen Denmark)- Create a deconstructed beer dessert

Round 4 (Mette Challenges Shalmanese in Seattle WA) - Create a dessert tapas plate consisting of 7 items in 7 days, using local and seasonal flavours

Round 5 (Shalmanese challenges Chiantiglace in West Palm Beach FL) - create a dessert involving smoke that evokes Autumn

Round 6 (Chiantiglace challenges K8Memphis in Memphis, TN) - create a dessert using Southern Sweet Tea

Round 7 (K8Memphis challenges SweetSide in rural CT) - create a desset using 5 kernels of corn representing the 5 blessing of the Pilgrims

Edited April 26, 2018 by Smithy
Adjusted title to show sequence (log)

[alanamoana]

EEEEEEEK!

Hehehe, I actually like fruitcake as well.

Thanks for passing the torch SweetSide, and what a great job you did on your Five Kernels of Corn challenge.

I actually mentioned to SweetSide that I felt the challenges were getting more and more esoteric (in the hopes that she'd give me an easy one), but although this isn't so out there I don't think it is any easier than previous challenges.

So, as everyone has done on previous challenges, please pipe up with any suggestions, tips, ideas, etc.

I think the first thing that comes to mind for me is lightening up what has traditionally been a pretty heavy or dense slice of cake. So if there are any thoughts as to how this can be done, chime in!

The wheels are turning...

Edited November 13, 2006 by alanamoana (log)

[LucyInAust]

Personally I like the denseness!! The biggest complaints about regular fruitcake I hear, is when it is dry ... or from those who don't like dried fruit in the first place ... would it be possible to create a freshfruit fruit cake still retaining the density? (would also improve the colour!)

[Irishgirl]

Just don't use candied fruit. This is the biggest abomination of fruit ever.

At my old work we dried our own fruit and put it into a white chocolate and dark chocolate pound cake. These were amazing. Had toasted nuts too.

I mean, you can do almost anything with "fruitcake". Pick a cake you like. Add fruit. Must have hard sauce.

[Domestic Goddess]

I must say I am really enjoying these Supreme Pastry and Baking Challenges. Half the fun is seeing the suggestions and inputs from others and the other half is seeing the beauty of the inspired creations. Kudos to you all!

[Pan]

Just don't use candied fruit.  This is the biggest abomination of fruit ever.[...]

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Confit de fruit isn't an abomination of any kind! It's really an issue of quality. I love confit de fruit but don't think much of that stuff with artificial color!

[JeanneCake]

Jim Dodge has a fresh fruit poundcake in his Stanford Court dessert cookbook. It calls for fresh apples, pears and cranberries - and I've been making it for years. In the summer, I sub berries for the cranberries and some Poire William for the buttermilk.

It's definitely not "fruitcake" in the sense of soaking with liqueur or brandy or what-have-you, or making in advance. I've even layered it with buttercream for a client who insisted on it for their wedding cake.

I think I would want to update the fruitcake with interesting dried fruits rather than the day-glow cherries. Sun-dried cherries or blueberries, or hazelnuts or macadamia nuts. I think people object to fruitcake because there's no cake in it (which is why it could double as a doorstop!) or it has weird bits of fruit that aren't delicious. I know that when I tasted the Harry and David version a few years ago, I thought it was awful. It was like a wedge of candied fruit - no cake to be found anywhere. And it was heavy and dense but not in a good way.

[Swisskaese]

I have seen fruitcake recipes that use a different type of cake base, for example, I have a recipe for a butternut squash fruit cake. I think this would make a very moist fruitcake.

Butternut Squash Fruitcake

Maybe you could make one with pumpkin, sweet potato or something else.

[dejaq]

I have to agree with Pan, quality of ingredients, or what commercial fruit cake has been considered as such, has given it a bad rap. Use nobel ingredients, and I don't think you can go wrong.

[jackal10]

I'm sorry. I want none of this light citrusy fresh fruit nonsense.

Fruit cake has to have dried vine fruit - rasins, currants, sultanas.

It should also be brown, and gently spiced.

Candied peel is optional, as are nuts - leave them out for me.

However I do like Marzipan, either as icing, or in the middle, as in a Simnel cake or a Stollen.

If you want it light make a hot fruit cake flavoured souffle, but don't serve it with tea, honey scones and cucumber sandwiches at four o'clock

(although that might give you a riff for plating)

[K8memphis]

Wow, what an awesome challenge, Cheryl, and congratulations AlanaMoana. I think lightening up fruit cake is a noble idea. I mean of course you are not limited to making just one kind either

I made fruit cake eons ago with beautiful real dried fruits and we soaked it in mead, honey wine.

And then there's an old Amish Friendship Cake where you soak the fruit in sugar etc for weeks and then the fruit ferments then you bake the cakes oooh so good. My Mother-in-law gave me the starter and formula ages ago and I do not have a copy but I'm just tossing out ideas into the idea bucket. Soak the cake, soak the fruit, soak the cook

Maybe fruit cake would be good with your own candied fruit but I agree the stuff they sell in grocery stores as candied fruit should be condemned by the fda.

I actually mentioned to SweetSide that I felt the challenges were getting more and more esoteric (in the hopes that she'd give me an easy one), but although this isn't so out there I don't think it is any easier than previous challenges.

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Why do you think they were esoteric? (I had to look it up but... : )

Jim Dodge has a fresh fruit poundcake in his Stanford Court dessert cookbook.  It calls for fresh apples, pears and cranberries - and I've been making it for years.  In the summer, I sub berries for the cranberries and some Poire William for the buttermilk.

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Would love to hear that recipe--mostly the ingredient list. And what is Poire William, a liqueur?

!!!Go Alana Go Alana Go Alana clap clap clap clap clap...

Edited November 13, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[alanamoana]

i have to agree with you here. i really love that people are interested in the process. of course, there are as many opinions as there are people on the planet, so having to weigh each post with as much care as weighing ingredients in a recipe takes some time.

as i scroll down, everyone has such great ideas for this one. i do think that fruitcake is a bit controversial. but that's what makes it fun.

I must say I am really enjoying these Supreme Pastry and Baking Challenges. Half the fun is seeing the suggestions and inputs from others and the other half is seeing the beauty of the inspired creations. Kudos to you all!

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[alanamoana]

And what is Poire William, a liqueur?

K8, it is an eau de vie distilled from pears. Often, you can see bottles that have a pear inside of them. They put the bottles over the flower and keep them there until the pear grows to maturity, then they pick the bottles with the pears inside and fill them with the alcohol.

here's a picture

this company also makes a great eau de vie de pomme (calvados or apple brandy). at my first job, we used a ton of it in our cinnamon creme fraiche ice cream served with an apple galette.

[alanamoana]

agreed Pan. good quality dried fruit or fruit confit is worlds away from the green and red "cherries" that are often used in fruitcake. i think there are more chemicals involved than fruit in those preparations.

Just don't use candied fruit.  This is the biggest abomination of fruit ever.[...]

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Confit de fruit isn't an abomination of any kind! It's really an issue of quality. I love confit de fruit but don't think much of that stuff with artificial color!

←

[alanamoana]

thanks for pointing out the marzipan, jackal10. in traditional english wedding cake (which is fruitcake), the cake is first coated in a layer of marzipan and then covered in fondant. all of this is done to preserve the cake. but i think i can find a nice way of including the marzipan...

Candied peel is optional, as are nuts - leave them out for me.

However I do like Marzipan, either as icing, or in the middle, as in a Simnel cake or a Stollen.

If you want it light make a hot fruit cake flavoured souffle, but don't serve it with tea, honey scones and cucumber sandwiches at four o'clock

(although that might give you a riff for plating)

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[jackal10]

Not just wedding cake, but also Christmas cake, birthdays and anniversaries. Simnel cake at Easter (strictly Mothering Sunday) has marzipan on top and inside, and can also have glace apricots ob top. I think Simnel cake is one of the finest.

You might be thinking of a Dundee cake (almonds on top) or a Genoa (Florentine mixture on top).

FItzbillies make some of the finest fruit cakes in the known universe: http://www.fitzbillies.co.uk/v2/index.php

[Lindacakes]

What is not to like about cake studded with bits of fruit? I don't get that! I'm sure there are a lot of bad fruitcakes out there, but I never met one I didn't like. I used to eat some sort of date cake thingy I got at the A&P . . .

Last night I made two more fruitcakes and laid them to rest on my closet shelf next to my first five. The first set was the pictured black cakes. These have ground fruit in them, including the much-maligned electric kool-aid acid candied cherry. For Grandma's fruitcake, the one I made last night, I candied my own sour cherries when they were in season. Jesus, were those beeyooteeful! I drained the juice and froze that for another day.

I HIGHLY recommend taking advantage of a cherry crop in this manner.

I really, really like glace pineapple. Ordered from Vine Tree Orchards. I'm going to try doing this myself, too.

Fruitcake can be a cassata, a granny-style loaf, a pannetone, a tropical mix, a date loaf, panforte, etc. I'm also thinking plum pudding and florentines. Glittering settings to show off that jewel-like fruit . . . someone here posted an image quite recently about slices of her granny's cake, so thin, one could see light through the stained glass like fruit pieces. Sigh.

There is a book you might want to take a look at -- Moira Hodgson's Favorite Fruitcakes. I read every recipe in this lately to determine that there are two kinds of fruitcake: one containing alcohol that must be aged, the longer the better; and a non-alcoholic version that is not aged. They tend to be alcohol/dark or nonalcohol/light, as in color. This is an artificial line -- my granny's cake has no alcohol and is aged for a month. The black cake has two fifths of liquor in it and doesn't really begin to taste good until four months.

So, here are some thoughts from one who wants to see you rise to the highest heights of fruitcake glory:

Personally candied fruit is delicious.

Do not fear citron.

Think about big presentation -- look at pictures of cassata, very exciting.

Angelica is a fabulous thing. Especially with chocolate.

A wee bit of flavoring (not vanilla) added to the batter.

Chocolate.

Think fancy alcohol, like the pear mentioned above, as opposed to rum or brandy.

Good luck!

[ludja]

For additional inspiration, you can read Truman Capote's short story online: "A Christmas Memory". click

Another resource, Andiesenji has some wonderful posts in the forums about making homemade candied fruit.

[JeanneCake]

Would love to hear that recipe--mostly the ingredient list.

Here is how I would tell you how to make this in a 10" round springform pan (bake at 350 for about 60-70 mins). It is not how the author would tell you to make it.

FIrst, chop into 1/2 cubes: 2 med green apples, and 2 med pears into a bowl and throw in 1.5 cups washed/dried cranberries. If you chop the cranberries, that's fine too.

Beat with paddle: 1/4# softened unsalted butter, 1.25 cups white sugar, and 1/4 cup buttermilk until it is light. Sift or whisk together 2.5 cups all purpose flour, 1 TBL baking powder. Divide in half and add half to the mixer and add 2 eggs. Blend well. Then add two more eggs, blend and then add the other half of the dry ingredients until it is light. Stir in the fruit and pour (scrape) into a (sprayed with Pam or other baking spray) pan and bake until firm in the center.

When I do this cake in the summer, I add about 1/4 cup of Poire William with the buttermilk (I have also used heavy cream with no ill effects s ince I always have cream around and not always buttermilk) and use the granny smith and anjou pears and raspberries and blueberries. I usually have cake flour on hand so that's what I use. It's fine either way (all purpose or cake flour).

[K8memphis]

Thanks, Jeanne, that sounds wonderful.

[Kouign Aman]

There's always the [?infamous?] option of deconstruction.

Fruitcake batters are delicious. Perhaps a small piped ring, or other shape, cooked to a soft cakey cookie, and served as a side to the beautiful stained glass fruits of your choice. ?put a bottom on it and fill it with almond pudding of some rich and decadent nature?

I'm not so fond of dried grape to look at, but yellow raisins could be very pretty next to thin round slices taken across a pineapple, candied and translucent.

Jackal10:

I'm sorry. I want none of this light citrusy fresh fruit nonsense.

Fruit cake has to have dried vine fruit - rasins, currants, sultanas.

It should also be brown, and gently spiced.

Edited November 14, 2006 by Kouign Aman (log)

[K8memphis]

There's always the [?infamous?] option of deconstruction.

To my knowledge, I'd never deconstructed food before but man that was fun!

If I had the right arena for it, I could so way get off on that.

[alanamoana]

You're getting closer to what I've been envisioning in my mind. I don't want to give too much away, but slightly deconstructed is what I'm aiming for.

I like the idea of the almond pudding but I'm leaning in another direction for a creamy element. Again, I want it to be a bit of a surprise.

Everyone, keep the ideas coming. Last minute changes are always possible!

There's always the [?infamous?] option of deconstruction.

Fruitcake batters are delicious. Perhaps a small piped ring, or other shape, cooked to a soft cakey cookie, and served as a side to the beautiful stained glass fruits of your choice.  ?put a bottom on it and fill it with almond pudding of some rich and decadent nature?

I'm not so fond of dried grape to look at, but yellow raisins could be very pretty next to  thin round slices taken across a pineapple, candied and translucent.

Jackal10:

I'm sorry. I want none of this light citrusy fresh fruit nonsense.

Fruit cake has to have dried vine fruit - rasins, currants, sultanas.

It should also be brown, and gently spiced.

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[K8memphis]

You're getting closer to what I've been envisioning in my mind.  I don't want to give too much away, but slightly deconstructed is what I'm aiming for.

...

Everyone, keep the ideas coming.  Last minute changes are always possible!...

I was the same way--I wanted the surprise factor.

I think tinsel and fa la la goes with fruit cake. Egg nog-y something?? Red and gold glass christmas ornaments, Collins Street Bakery tins, monks, lace doilies, egg nog hard sauce, fruit cake tarts?? Has fruit cake creme brulee been mentioned?? That's a wild thought

Geez make some stollen and I'll eat it through the screen. I totally think yeasted candied fruit stuff fits with your theme. 'Cause I love that stuff, I get sick as a dog eating it though what am I laughing about??!! : )

Y'know what??? I think I've always had fruit cake served cold or room temp. That is a huge mistake isn't it?! Bet it would be better served microzapped a few seconds.

Just some fruitcake thoughts pun intended, probably true too!!

[alanamoana]

errrm, K8, i've been holding back...but you are what you eat, dontcha know...

only kidding! a bit of fruitcake humor, ya know!

You're getting closer to what I've been envisioning in my mind.  I don't want to give too much away, but slightly deconstructed is what I'm aiming for.

...

Everyone, keep the ideas coming.  Last minute changes are always possible!...

I was the same way--I wanted the surprise factor.

I think tinsel and fa la la goes with fruit cake. Egg nog-y something?? Red and gold glass christmas ornaments, Collins Street Bakery tins, monks, lace doilies, egg nog hard sauce, fruit cake tarts?? Has fruit cake creme brulee been mentioned?? That's a wild thought

Geez make some stollen and I'll eat it through the screen. I totally think yeasted candied fruit stuff fits with your theme. 'Cause I love that stuff, I get sick as a dog eating it though what am I laughing about??!! : )

Y'know what??? I think I've always had fruit cake served cold or room temp. That is a huge mistake isn't it?! Bet it would be better served microzapped a few seconds.

Just some fruitcake thoughts pun intended, probably true too!!

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