Fruitcake for Xmas 2008

I am late in making fruit cake this year. They say the longer you "age" the cake the better it will taste. The first time I made this cake was 2 years ago. It was aged for almost 3 months and turned out very good (according to Mal). The second year I made some changes to the variety of fruits and nuts and still turned out good. So I am just gonna stick to this recipe for the rest of the years to come ;)

This is a very easy fruitcake to put together, it doesn't taste overly sweet unlike most store-bought fruitcakes. Make this 1-3 months before Christmas and give some to special friends and family. They will surely love you for it :)

The original recipe by Alton Brown is taken from here. The changes I've made are in (red ) :

Free Range Fruitcake - Part 1

To soak overnight:
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup currants (no currants, so substitute with dried figs)
1/2 cup sun dried cranberries
1/2 cup sun dried blueberries (add more of dried cranberries & dried apricots to make 1/2C)
1/2 cup sun dried cherries (subst. with dried cherry tomatoes ;P)
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
Zest of one lemon, chopped coarsely (gratedwith a Microplane zester)
Zest of one orange, chopped coarsely (grated with a Microplane zester)
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped
1 cup gold rum (subst. with brandy this year)

basically I just mix and match the dried fruits. I added a lot more dried cranberries coz I love them :)

zest of an orange and a lemon. I didn't chop the zest as indicated in the recipe coz they were fine enough.


I chopped up all the dried fruits to tiny pieces. Dried figs are a little hard to chop, so try using a kitchen scissors to snip them to bits. Remove the stalks if any. Look at that... the colour of Christmas :)


Just mix all the chopped fruits and zests and a cup of brandy. Make sure all the fruits are coated with brandy before covering loosely with clingwrap and leave to macerate at room temperature till the next day. But do mix the fruits at least twice if possible so that they get macerated evenly.

Part 2:
A
1 cup sugar (about 3/4C)
5 oz unsalted butter (143gms)
1 cup unfiltered apple juice (used apple cider vinegar this time. Might be a bad idea. Hope it doesn't turn out too sour)
4 whole cloves, ground (pound and grind using mortal & pestle)
6 allspice berries, ground (pound and grind using mortal & pestle)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger

B
Combine:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs
1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted pecans, broken (1/4C toasted pecans + 1/4C toasted hazelnuts)


I break/pound the nuts into small pieces about the size of the chopped fruits


Now just put all of A into the macerated fruits and bring to a gentle boil. Stir often...Let simmer about 10 minutes then cool for 15minutes. Preheat oven at 160°C now...



After 15minutes, sift in B a little at a time, mixing thoroughly with a wooden spatula before adding more, then stir in the eggs, on at a time. Finally fold in the nuts.


I like to put the batter into small loaf tins, this way you can give to people and save some for yourself. I managed to fill 1 7" loaf and 2 5" loaf tins with the full recipe. Bake them for 1 hour. Check at 50 minutes with a skewer.

Beautifully baked! Smells good too ;)

Turn them out onto a cooling rack, then spritz with some brandy. I use a syringe to do that. Leave to cool completely then store in an airtight container. Keep the container in a dark and cool place. Every 3-4 days, spritz with brandy.

Let's see how it goes on Xmas Eve :)