This ain't my cake but looks similar.
Nineteen years ago this month my girlfriend and I got married in Ann Arbor, MI. We lived in a cool old house not far from campus, and thanks to my grandparents it was furnished in what I call Eclectic New England Antique: a little bit of this, a bit more of that and a whole bunch of chairs that don't match.
One piece I inherited was a Welsh cabinet my father built from antique pumpkin pine lumber. It's elegant, simple furniture with two drawers, two doors underneath and a shelf enclosure with plate rails above. To this day is my favorite among favorites.
When we were packing up to move I went to collect it from my grandparent's basement and noticed the drawers were still full with years of odds and ends. This cabinet had served the time-honored purpose of hosting the Junk Drawers and no one had bothered to clean them out when the farm was sold. Without a second look we loaded up the truck and headed off to Michigan.
I never much bothered to look in the drawers once we had the house set up, at least no more than they were looked into in the prior 30+ years. Maybe a cursory inspection in pursuit of a pencil, or to grab the stub of a candle to help fix a new taper into a candlestick. I knew there were a couple decks of cards in there missing their Jacks and some wax paper laxative bundles from the 50's. Cleaning through those drawers was the kind of task one schedules for "later", meaning "never".
Right around the end of Thanksgiving that year, as we prepared to get married and to spend our first holiday season together in our own home, I decided to make a fruitcake. She'd been working at a bakery that made a gorgeous and super-moist variety that were the only fruitcakes I had ever honestly enjoyed until that point. I was inspired to give it a shot.
As I dug around the pantry making a list of ingredients we had or didn't have, I called out items to my fiancée who was keeping the list: brown sugar, molasses, candied fruit.
"There's a container of candied fruit in the Welsh cabinet, left-hand drawer." she said from the dining room.
And so there was, a half-used and perfectly fresh looking container of brightly colored fruits glacés circa 1975. They were 20 years old and could have been purchased that very day as far as either of us could discern.
The sight of bright red maraschino's and bitter yellow citron reminded me of what I did not like about fruitcake as a kid. The taste of those fruits and their synthetic appearance was so loathsome it just killed my enthusiasm for the project. The fact the looked so well after so long sealed my fate.
"How about we stick with your cakes from work?" I suggested.
It was no skin off her nose since like many people she doesn't enjoy fruitcake and wouldn't be eating it either way.
A few years later I found an old handwritten recipe in my great-grandmother's turn of the century cookbook. It contains home-made candied fruit and no citron or bitter peel. I decided to have a go at it and discovered that with patience and the right ingredients fruitcake can be wonderfully delicious.
Here are the instructions and ingredients as I found them. Please note the absence of citron or peel. It seems I come by my dislike for them naturally.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb flour
- 1 lb butter
- 1 lb sugar
- 1 c dark molasses
- 12 eggs
- 1 tsp soda in 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp mace
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1 lb chopped walnuts
- 1 lb chopped dates
- 1/2 lb candied cherry
- 3 lb currants
- 2 lb candied pineapple
- 1 pint of brandy
Instructions:
Take candied fruits up into the brandy for a soak overnight. Make a fine cream from butter and sugar, add beaten yolks of eggs, add molasses, soda and the spices. Dry and cut the fruit then dredge thorough the flour. Stir all into the mixture with the flour and beaten whites of eggs. Mix well then add the brandy. Bake in one large loaf in buttered paper very slow lasting four or five hours. Test with a broom straw the center is well baked. If batter seem thin do not add extra flour if you want a rich moist fruit cake. Will keep months wrapped in brandy rags and boxed.
Now about those
candied fruits.
THE BASIC TECHNIQUE:
Candied (crystallized or “glace”) fruit has been around since at least the 14th century. Whole fruit or pieces of fruit can be preserved in this manner. Basically, the method is simply to gently cook the barely ripe fruit in increasingly stronger solutions of heated sugar syrup; as time goes by, the syrup gradually replaces the water content of the fruit. The process can take from several days to several months, depending upon the type and size of fruit. Expect to spend about 6 days preparing whole small fruits, as described below.
The first time I did this I got impatient and tried to force the process. The result is inferior.
I could write this all out for you but I discovered this wonderful resource and she sums the process up much better than I could with lots of quality info. If you intend to go through the effort to make your own fruits glacés, please enjoy reading GLACÉ (CANDIED) FRUIT at melindalee.com.
If you make this using commercial fruits you can adjust them to taste. Some like the citron and bitter peels, some like papaya and apricot. The great thing about this recipe is it's very moist (look at all that egg!) and can be altered to suit, just use
quality ingredients as always (not the crap from my junk drawer). Try using rum instead of brandy. Try using raw or light sugar instead of brown, or golden treacle instead of dark molasses for a lighter cake. The sky is the limit as long as you
a) don't add extra flour because it looks thin
b) use hella butter and egg
c) cook it low and slow
And just how do I enjoy this fruitcake? Why, heavily toasted with Irish butter and a cuppa Salada, of course!
UPDATE: HT to wader in comments for pointing out that fruitcakes like this need to sit around and cure for a while to achieve their peak flavor and texture profile. I neglected to include that here and it's absolutely correct. You're never going to make this cake and slice it up the same day. I mean, you could and it would taste fine, but resting for a two or three weeks is optimal, for sure. Thanks for the wake up!
Are any of you Kossacks eating fruitcake this year? Do you still have one from last year, the year before or the late 1970's still unopened in the cupboard? Do you have a recipe of your own to share? Let us know in comments.
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