Fruit Cake
Whilst this lives in the “Love/Hate” section of my recipe box. I do love the creation of a good fruit cake.
It is NOT a fast thing, from the maceration of the fruit mix, the the aging of the final product can take up to three months.
My usual schedule was that as I prepare for the annual Bad Wolf birthday party I would purchase the various dried fruits, and start the maceration early October. Thence bake during my preparations for the Turkeyfest in Mid November, and actually deliver during cookie season, or serve at the holiday gathering, late december.
Many people ridicule fruit cake, but I find a generous slice, with a hot coco / chocolate, topped with a bourbon whipped cream is an excellent midnight snack.
From Wikipedia:
Fruitcake (or fruit cake or fruit bread) is a cake made with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in spirits. In the United Kingdom, certain rich versions may be iced and decorated.
Fruitcakes are typically served in celebration of weddings and Christmas. Given their rich nature, fruitcakes are most often consumed on their own, as opposed to with condiments (such as butter or cream).
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash. In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added.
Fruitcakes soon proliferated all over Europe. Recipes varied greatly in different countries throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients as well as (in some instances) church regulations forbidding the use of butter, regarding the observance of fast. Pope Innocent VIII (1432–1492) finally granted the use of butter, in a written permission known as the ‘Butter Letter’ or Butterbrief in 1490, giving permission to Saxony to use milk and butter in the Stollen fruitcakes.
Starting in the 16th century, sugar from the American Colonies (and the discovery that high concentrations of sugar could preserve fruits) created an excess of candied fruit, thus making fruitcakes more affordable and popular.
Fruit Cake
Equipment
- Cake Storage Tins, 8×5" with covers
Ingredients
- 325 grams Cake Flour Sifted
- 4 grams Baking Powder
- 3 grams Baking Soda
- 2 grams Ground Cinnamon
- 1 gram Ground Ginger
- 1 gram Nutmeg
- 1 gram Salt
- 240 ml Buttermilk
- 1 gram Ground Cloves
- 5 ml Vanilla Extract
- 171 grams Butter Softened
- 200 grams Brown Sugar
- 115 grams Sugar Granulated
- 3 ea Eggs Jumbo, room temp
- 1000 grams Fruit Mix https://www.roguechef.com/?p=1660
- 2 Shots Bourbon Decent stuff
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350, butter and flour 2 8×4" loaf pans
- Sift flour and spices into mixing bowl
- Add vanilla to buttermilk
- In stand mixer cream butter with sugars, until fluffy ~ 4 minutes
- Add eggs one at a time, scraping bowl as needed
- Beat in flour mixture with buttermilk mixture, alternating mixtures, scrape bowl as necessary
- Looking for a smooth batter.
- Fold in Fruit Mix, Drained of any maceration juices
- Divide mix between pans
- Transfer the pans to the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cakes begin to pull back from the sides
- Cool cakes for ~ 15 minutes, turn out on a rack and invert, Cool completely or overnight
- Place cakes into storage tins, add 1 shot of good bourbon per cake, seal
- Age in a cool dark place for at least 2 weeks, up to 2 months.
Notes
Nutrition
Filed
under: Autumn, Baked, Dessert, General, Vegetarian, Winter
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