jj@alice.att.com (jj, like it or not) (05/21/91)
In article <1991May17.162645.25264@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> cnguyen@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Cuong Nguyen) writes: >I am looking for recipes on how to make fruit cake. Almira's fruitcake. (Moderator: Almira is my mother, this is much modified from hers, but we don't compete, we just eat each other's.) Servings: Many! About 12 lbs. Bake at 275F - For 2 to 2 1/2 Hours in 12 - 14 1 lb fruit cake pans. Ingredients: Dry: 3 C flour (all-purpose, or unbleached. No bread flour, no cake flour) 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp ground allspice Fruit: 2 1/2 C chopped walnuts (give or take) 1 1/2 lb chopped pitted dates (give or take) 1 1/2 lb halved glace cherries (give or take) 1 1/2 lb fruit cake mix (candied fruit) (give or take) (Our last few batches used more fruitcake mix and less cherries due to supplys in-house. Suit yourself, try to keep the *sum* more or less constant.) Other: 3 C cold water 1/2 lb butter 2 C sugar 3 lb raisins (dark and/or golden) 1 lb chopped dried apricots 3 lg eggs 1/4 C decent brandy or dark rum Directions: Sift dry ingredients together. Reserve half. Use 1/2 of the dry ingredients to keep dates and candied fruit from sticking together after chopping. A food processor makes chopping the fruit much easier, but make sure you use the flour to keep things from sticking. In general, hand-chopping is more work, but is much more reliable. Beat eggs very lightly, just until uniform In large kettle (10 quart minimum), combine sugar, raisins, apricots, and cold water. Heat until mixture steams, *Do not boil.* Cook for 10 minutes without boiling, then add butter and stir until mixed. Cool until lukewarm. Add eggs, mix. Add fruits and dry ingredients in alternating parts. The mixture will be agonizingly stiff. Add brandy and mix. It will still be just as stiff, but the smell will be much in the spirits... ;-) Fill greased pans 2/3 full. Bake. Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center pulls out clean, roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then remove and finish cooling on racks. As odd as it sounds, SLOW baking is right, you don't want to caramelize the outside of the cake very much, if any. Wrap fruitcake in foil, refrigerate. Will keep for several months. May be sprinkled with rum or brandy if desired. Precision required: Very little Possible adjustments: Depending on the state of the raisins and apricots, you may or may not have to add a BIT of water to make the dough wet-cement-like rather than granite-like, but it's supposed to be stiff. You should plump the raisins and dried fruit longer, rather than shorter, if possible. That's how you avoid chewy fruit. If the raisins are really dry, add JUST enough water so that they are almost covered. After spooning dough into pan, if you push down the raisins, apricots and dates, you will get no chewy parts. Possible changes to taste: Endless. We sometimes use candied citron, or candied pineapple as well. (well chopped!) You can use rum to soak the cakes afterwards, or not. Adding the brandy before cooking dissolves fruit flavors into the dough, this is key to a good tasking (rather than bland/sweet) cake. You can use other dried fruits as well as apricots. Figs don't work, though, in our experience, so you're warned. Rum before cooking is a different flavor than brandy, we like either. If you add both, it's probably too much liquid, but you'll just have to bake longer in that case.