And Yet More on Fruitcake

Recently I attended a fruitcake competition in a local town.  

The rules were simple:  Bring a fruitcake (with recipe) to the given location at the given time.  The judges were the lead actors in a play that involved fruitcakes and they were a treat to watch as they were in character the whole time.  

There were no limits on what could go in your fruitcake and we were invited to present our recipe to the judges.  I took the opportunity to point out that this was from an original 1845 recipe and that it didn't have that sticky, imitation-colored, dried fruit mix or even baking soda or yeast.  I emphasized how the fruitcake was baked in August, soaked with brandy (they liked that part!), and wrapped and stored for three months.

The Verdict:  In the end, they awarded my fruitcake with the title of "Best Traditional".  I was thrilled!

It was a fun day and we were all allowed to taste the entries.  You just can't go wrong with that!

Mine is front row, right

And now you can call Mrs. Elizabeth Ellicott Lea's recipe, "An Award-Winning Fruitcake!"

More on Fruitcake

After I made five loaves of an 1845 fruitcake recipe (see Sept 1, 2012), I ate one and stored away the rest.  My goal was to wrap them in cheesecloth and soak them with brandy to see what they were like after a few months.

And so I did.  A few layers of cheesecloth was all that was needed and any extra bits got put to the underside of the loaf to soak up extra brandy.

I wrapped the loaf,

Fruitcake Mummy!

poured enough brandy over it to soak the cloth, plus a little extra for the loaf,

Soggy Mummy.  Plate catches the drips.

encased it in plastic wrap (put all edges on the top of the loaf, to prevent leakage),

Set the loaf on a sheet of plastic, then wrap upward.

and put it into a plastic bag, labeled with the contents and the date.


Three loaves went into the bottom of the refrigerator and one went into the dark, cool cupboard to keep the container of mincemeat (August 15, 2012) company.  I was curious to see if the fruitcake with brandy really needed refrigeration to keep from getting moldy.

I wondered if the cheesecloth was really needed.  After all, plastic wrap is a modern invention -- would it be able to take over completely?  I don't think so, just from observing how the brandy quickly soaked the entire cheesecloth.  I suspect the cloth will keep the brandy distributed over the entire loaf, instead of just sitting at the bottom.

I also think it would be okay to use muslin instead of cheesecloth, or any other undyed, natural fiber cloth, as long as it was clean and had the sizing washed out of it.

After two months, I pulled the loaf out of the cupboard and gave it a try.

Looking good despite no refrigeration

While unwrapping the plastic, I looked it over carefully for any signs of mold or spoilage.  I noticed it was uniformly moist (not soggy) and smelled nice.  The brandy was barely noticeable.

The cheesecloth wrap looks and feels moist

The loaf itself was moist and smelled fresh and inviting.  The slightly scorched part on the bottom was still there (ugh!) but it wasn't dry at all.

I sliced it open in the middle and found it was moist all the way through.  The flavor was lovely -- I could taste the spices, the fruits (cranberries were a good choice) and nuts, and a very light brandy overtone.

The Verdict:  Success!  It was nice to have it out of my refrigerator and still be good later.  I like it better than the freshly-baked loaf since it was more moist.  The slightly scorched part didn't taste as strong although for my second piece, I sliced it off.

This is definitely worthwhile.  Most people complain about fruitcake, saying it is like a brick or filled with cheap, artificially-colored peels and dried fruits.  This one is fresh, flavorful, tender, moist, and most definitely has no artificial colors or additives.  Quite yummy!

In a Christmas Mood: Fruitcake

Some things in life need to be planned for.  Christmas means thinking about gifts (no C. Eve shopping for me!) and something I have always loved, fruitcake.

I know, it has a bad reputation.  Comedian Johnny Carson is reported as saying, "There is only one fruitcake in the world; people just keep passing it around."  Or something like that.  But I truly love it, in its many varied forms.  Sliced, slightly heated, with a dollop of whipped cream on top and I'm a happy person.  Add a glass of eggnog on the side and I am in ecstasy.

The really good fruitcake is made well in advance of the holiday season so it can be wrapped in cheesecloth and soaked in brandy.  And that, my friends, is what was on my mind today.

I perused a number of books and viewed a variety of recipes.  The modern ones tend to request that colorful mix of candied fruits and I was tempted because I have some of that mix in my cupboard.  But I was looking for something that was older.  How old should I go?

Here is a history of the fruitcake:   http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Cakes/Fruitcake.htm

Although the Romans talked about fruitcake, the one that is so familiar to us started in the Middle Ages and improved over the years with nuts, spices, dried fruits, sweetener.

The earliest recipe I could find that still resembled what I love at Christmas came from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea's Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, which I found as an ebook here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9101

Published in 1845

She lists several fruitcake recipes, including the Plum Cake ("plum" is an old term for dried fruits of most any kind). I chose the one called:

A Rich Fruit Cake.

Have the following articles prepared before you begin the cake: dry and sift four pounds of flour, four pounds of butter with the salt washed out, two pounds of loaf-sugar pounded, one ounce of nutmegs grated, an ounce of mace pounded; wash four pounds of currants; dry, pick, and rub them in flour; stone and cut two pounds of raisins; slice two pounds of citron, blanch a pound of sweet almonds and cut them in very thin slices; break thirty eggs, separate the whites and yelks, and beat them till very light; work the butter with your hand till it is soft as cream; put in alternately the flour, sugar and eggs. When all are mixed in, and the cake looks very light, add the spice, fruit, almonds, and half a pint of brandy; set it in a well heated oven to bake; when it has risen, and the top is beginning to brown, cover it with paper; let it bake four hours, and when it is nearly cool, ice it. This will keep a long time in a stone pan, covered close.

Ingredients for a half recipe!

Rich? Looks pretty good. More than my poor little bowls, mixer, and oven can handle? Most certainly. I debated on doing a half recipe or a quarter recipe. The half recipe won out and I just crossed my fingers that I could make it all fit into my various mixing bowls.

Did you notice?  The only leavening is the beaten egg whites.  This is exciting! 

Reading through the recipe told me that I needed to pay attention to the order of things if I was going to use my mixer. First I separated the eggs (15 yolks is about 1 1/4 cups when using large eggs). Then following the "beat them till very light" direction, I had the mixer beat the whites while I used a whisk to beat the yolks.  I stopped when the whites stopped expanding (they fit in the bowl!) -- they were stiff like a meringue but not dry.  The yolks were "lemon yellow" and foamy.

Yolks just beginning to be whisked.

Yolks after a lot of whisking.

I transferred the whites to another bowl so I could use the mixer for the batter and laughed when I saw them hold the shape of the mixer bowl.

Whites shaped like the bottom of the mixer's bowl

Next I put the butter, cut into smallish chunks, into the mixer's bowl and started beating them.  Recommendation:  Have the butter softened to room temperature before doing this so the chunks are less likely to climb out of the bowl!  When finished, I don't think the butter was truly "as soft as cream" but it was very soft.

I then alternated adding the flour, sugar, and yolks.  I was reluctant to mix in the whites because I kept thinking they should be folded in, despite no sign of that in the directions.  Once I got the other ingredients in, the whites went into the mixer bowl and I was pleased to see them incorporated and still make the batter fluffy.  Then I added the spices so the mixer could get them well blended.  It took 3 1/2 "nuts" of nutmeg to get one half ounce!  That is a lot of grating, even with some help from the spice grinder.

Batter out of the mixer.  Not enough room!

The batter had to go into my giant steel mixing bowl in order to have room for the fruit and almonds plus leave room for mixing by hand.  I was so relieved I did only a half recipe. 

As with the Mincemeat recipe (Aug 15, 2012), I couldn't get citron.  I didn't want to use one pound of peel so I did what any cook from history would have done:  I improvised! I used dried cranberries.  I think they will be a fantastic substitution, adding a bit of tart to the sweet currants and raisins.

Then in went the fruit, nuts, and brandy.

Before stirring

After a good stirring, I tasted the batter and declared it:  delicious!  It was light, fluffy, and had a wonderful flavor.  The mace/nutmeg/brandy combination was great.  I wanted to keep eating batter.

All mixed up!

This half recipe filled five of my loaf pans (four glass, one metal) to about 3/4 full.

I got them to fit in the oven on one rack and baked them for an hour at 350 degrees F.  At this point I covered them with parchment paper and set the timer for 30 minutes.  I really hoped it wouldn't take them another 4 hours of cooking to be done as it was already 9pm.

As it turned out, another 30 minutes at 300 degrees F and they were ready.  Perhaps they were ready earlier -- they looked just a tad dry -- but I was happy with 30 minutes.  The "stick test" showed they were cooked all the way through.

The Verdict:  The loaf I chose for the taste test was solid (not fluffy) but pretty light weight.  The inside was still moist although the outside was a touch dry and the bottom had one area that was lightly scorched.

The flavor was just as I expected it!  The mace/nutmeg/brandy combination was classic and the fruits were moist and flavorful.  Overall I would say it was a success.

Final notes:  Modern ovens maintain a level temperature as compared to the wood-fired ovens of 1845.  Next time I would bake the loaves at 325 degrees F for 1 to 1 1/4 hours, until they were done (barely).  No parchment is necessary.  I'm so glad I checked them often because I was really worried I would end up with blackened fruit bricks and I don't need any more doorstops.

The other four loaves will be wrapped in cheesecloth and soaked in brandy.  I'll get back to you on that to see how the flavors change over time.