[JoeProBono]

Ingredients

1 cup golden raisins 1 cup currants 1/2 cup sun dried cranberries 1/2 cup sun dried blueberries 1/2 cup sun dried cherries 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped Zest of one lemon, chopped coarsely Zest of one orange, chopped coarsely 1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped 1 cup gold rum 1 cup sugar 5 ounces unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks) 1 cup unfiltered apple juice 4 whole cloves, ground 6 allspice berries, ground 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 2 eggs 1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted pecans, broken Brandy for basting and/or spritzing

Procedure:

Combine dried fruits, candied ginger and both zests. Add rum and macerate overnight, or microwave for 5 minutes to re-hydrate fruit.

Place fruit and liquid in a non-reactive pot with the sugar, butter, apple juice and spices. Bring mixture to a boil stirring often, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for atleast 15 minutes. (Batter can be completed up to this point, then covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before completing cake.)

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients and sift into fruit mixture. Quickly bring batter together with a large wooden spoon, then stir in eggs one at a time until completely integrated, then fold in nuts. Spoon into a 10-inch non-stick loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done. If not, bake another 10 minutes, and check again.

Remove cake from oven and place on cooling rack or trivet. Baste or spritz top with brandy and allow to cool completely before turning out from pan.

When cake is completely cooled, seal in a tight sealing, food safe container. Every 2 to 3 days, feel the cake and if dry, spritz with brandy. The cake's flavor will enhance considerably over the next two weeks.

[JoeProBono]

[vetvetdoug]

Buy a fruitcake from Corsicana, Texas. There is a company there that makes them better than most and has been for over a hunnert years.

[cripplecreek]

One part Rosie O’donut and one part Richard Simmons.

Mix vigorously ((shudder))

Wait nine months.

[null and void]

macerate overnight?

I don’t think I can do that...

[Kimmers]

Some have said if I drink enough of my favorite recipie I act like a fruitcake

glass
crushed ice
scotch

[the invisib1e hand]

Be sure to have some Spam for dessert!

[Dysart]

[lilylangtree]

I’m HUNGRY! Sounds delicious.

[geege]

It sounds yummy......my friends and I ordered the Jack Daniels fruit cake from Tennessee years ago and the 3 of us ate the whole thing...It consisted of 17 shots of JD and I ended up leaving my inside car light on for 3 days without noticing till finally the battery died....I guess it was a REALLY good cake!!!!!!

[anniegetyourgun]

You must be with these people....

[llmc1]

That looks like Alton Brown’s Free Range Fruitcake. I wanted to try it this year, but the ingredients were too expensive. I’ve got a cheaper fruitcake baking in the oven right now. Smells good, but I doubt it will be as good as yours.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

For the standard loaded dark fruitcake in a tightly sealed tin, dribbling one tablespoon of dark rum over it every day will not make the cake sodden, but after a month, it will be like crystallized honey inside, with a strong alcohol content.

Traditionally, keep a small bowl of whole cloves next to the fruitcake, so that after a slice, they can suck on a clove to disguise their breath. While there is no great reason for doing so any more, it add a little something to the presentation.

I might add that this is also the time of the year to make German Honey cookies, that are something like fruitcake right out of the oven, but properly need to age for a year or two to reach their full potential. They are the brandy of cookies:

Chopped into small pieces:
3 ounces citron, 3 ounces candied orange peel, 3 ounces candied lemon peel.
Add 1 cup chopped blanched almonds
1 tsp grated lemon rind
3 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ground cloves
3 1/3 cups confectioner’s sugar
Beat until light and add 6 eggs
Bring to boiling point, then cool until lukewarm, 1 pint honey
Dissolve 1 tbsp soda in 2 tbsp hot water
Add this to the egg mixture with the honey and
1/4 cut orange juice
Stir in:
5 cups bread flour
Let the dough stand for 12 hours or more.
Drop from a spoon, well apart, on greased baking sheets
Bake at 350 until done, about 10 minutes
Ice with 2 cups confectioner’s sugar with 3 tbsp or more boiling water and 1 tsp pure vanilla extract.

The cookies are not particularly pretty, but should be layer stacked in a large tin (like the kind used for popcorn), with waxed paper between layers. They taste far better at 6 months than fresh, are a wonderful Christmas treat after 1 year, and after 2 years are gourmet cookies too good for children. They darken as they age, but do not spoil.

One cook used gourmet black honey (aged over 10 years until it turns black and crystallizes), and prized his honey cookies like fine wine.

[Alia]

Yum!

[Mercat]

We never eat fruitcake because it has rum. And one little bite turns a man to a bum. Can you imagine a sorrier sight than a man eating fruitcake until he gets tight. Away away with rum by gum, rum by gum, rum by gum, away away with rum by gum is the song of the Salvation Army.

[Conan the Librarian]

Go to store or internet.

http://www.claxtonfruitcake.com/

Buy a Claxton fruit Cake.

Slice and enjoy.

Why try to make something when you can buy perfection with ease?

[Mercat]

Seriously, for our recovering friends, use apple juice in place of the alcohol. It’s just as good.

[TaxRelief]

Rich Dark Fruitcake Recipe in my family for over 250 years:

4 pounds of mixed dried fruit (raisins, goldens, sultanas, diced prunes, diced mangoes, cherries, candied pineapple, for example)
5 oz brown sugar
5 oz light brown or very fine sugar or turbinado
2 oz ground almonds
6 eggs
11 oz flour
10 oz butter
Brandy
Parchment paper

Spice: 1/2 tspn cinnamon, 1 tspn allspice, 1 tspn nutmeg, 2 ground cloves, 1/4 tsp cardamon, 1/4 tspn salt

Soak the fruit, in enough brandy to make the fruit look damp and in a sealed jug at a minimum overnight and up to three weeks. A little liquid in the bottom of the jug is OK. (The closer you get to 3 weeks of soaking, the better)

Prepare cake by mixing half the sugar and the ground almonds thoroughly with the brandy soaked fruit in large mixing bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and the rest of the sugar with a beater. Add the eggs one at a time and blend each thoroughly. Add the spices/salt and blend. Slowly add in the flour and blend well. Batter should be thick.

Fold batter into fruit mixture in large mixing bowl.

Heat oven to 250 degrees. Line deep round cake pan with parchment paper. Place paper cup upside down in center or use pan with center cone. Bread loaf pan will work if that is your only deep pan. Pour batter into parchment paper lined pan. Cook 5 1/2 hours.

Let cool. Feed cake with a drizzle of brandy every 2 weeks until ready to use.

Final touches to cake begin 2 days before serving:

Marzipan
Apricot Jam
Royal Icing

Melt 4 to 6 oz of apricot jam.
Roll out marzipan in circle for top and long 5 inch wide strip for sides.
Coat cake with warm apricot jam. This will act as “glue” for the marzipan.
Let cake sit for day lightly covered.

Prepare Royal Icing. (1 lb confectioners sugar, 3 egg whites, 2 drops glycerine...CVS sells glycerine over the counter). Beat until stiff.

Spread on Icing on cake, decorate and let it cure for 24 hours covered but with a bit of ventilation. (I put a tupperware over it, but use chopsticks to prop it up a bit so some air still gets in.)

[Desdemona]

Nope. Sorry. The best is my family recipe which has been around for a LOOOONNNNNGGGGGGG time and appeared in the Joy of Cooking. Just leave out the citron and be generous with the brandy when incubating. I don’t know how the Joy of Cooking got it, but the dough is exactly the same.

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]