It's Fruitcake Time

This year I decided to make fruitcake. I blame Alton Brown for giving me the idea, as I recently picked up his first Good Eats cookbook, and it includes his Free Range fruitcake -- all dried fruits, doused in liberal quantities of rum. But the roots of my fruitcake experiment go further back. As a child I loved the TV special A Christmas Memory. We would go to Grandma's house, since she had a color TV, to watch Truman Capote's "evocative narrative focuse(d) on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season." * Fruitcake figures largely in the sweet story of the happy holidays young Truman spent with an elderly, slightly batty cousin.

Years later my brother married a Southern girl, and her first Christmas brought our family portions of several types of fruitcake her family made every year. There were white ones, dark ones, densely alcoholic cakes and gently fruity types. I think I loved them all! Unfortunately, my SIL's relations with her family went downhill after she married my brother, and we never got to sample those lovely wares again.

So here it is, Christmas 2012 approaching. My loving husband, who hated even the thought of fruitcake, has been gone for several years. (Hopefully St. Peter didn't meet him at the gates with a sample of Heavenly Manna stuffed with artificially green candied cherries and lemon peel. LOL) I felt I needed some fun new holiday traditions. Fruitcake seemed perfect, especially when I found out both my kids inherited my enjoyment of it.

That's how I found myself over Thanksgiving having a Fruitcake Bake-a-Thon. I made two loaves of a white one with no alcohol, only orange juice. It holds the most typical mix of candied fruits. I made what turned out to be three loaves of Alton Brown's lovely offering. After soaking the dried fruit overnight in rum, (I chose Sailor Jerry's Spiced variety), you then simmer it on the stove while melting in the butter and brown sugar. AMAZING! I wish I could have a pot on the stove everyday, it smelled so spicy and rich. 

My third recipe is called Stephen's Dark, and is a take-off on the old Joy of Cooking recipe. Since my Joy fell apart years ago and somehow never got replaced, I'm using Stephen's version for what should have been two loaves but ended up more one and a half. It has a mix of dried and candied fruit. You put alcohol inside, (I used Marsala, since I had it on hand), and then as it bakes you pour more whiskey over it every 15 minutes. I don't drink, so I had to seek help from others before shopping for the alcohol, and for this step I bought Jim Beam Black. They man at my local liquor store had clearly fielded Christmas baking questions before, and made me feel right at home. 

As soon as the fruitcakes come from the oven you douse them with the chosen liquid, and let them cool in the pan. Then you douse them again, remove from the pan, and wrap them in cheesecloth which has also been soaked in the alcohol or juice. I'll admit I wrapped them first, then poured the liquid over until they were soaked. It seemed easier and a lot less messy. The cakes now reside in sealed plastic bags, and get re-doused every few days. (I'm may run out of rum before Christmas.) I think the alcohol keeps them from molding, but I also read you can refrigerate them after a week or two, so I may do that just to be sure.

I can already tell you these lovelies are good, as one of the Free Range cakes was smaller than the rest, and I decided to try a bite before wrapping it up...     Did you know a tiny wedge of fruitcake is great with a cup of hot tea in the morning? Or in the afternoon? Or just before bed? And it got better everyday, even without the extra rum. Yum.

I think part of what makes them so good is quality ingredients. I used lovely dried Turkish apricots, flavorful dried tart cherries, and some organic figs, among many other fruits. I purchased almost everything fresh, mostly from Whole Foods. The cake part is pretty much a pound cake, and I used real, fresh butter. Shortly before Christmas, sections of these cakes are going out to the kids, and we will be enjoying and making notes for changes or improvements for next year. Should be, as the man on TV says,  "Good Eats".


*Wikipedia "A Christmas Memory"
**You can watch a newer version of  A Christmas Memory on Netflix. You-Tube has portions (in b&w) of the version I grew up with, starring Geraldine Page, and narrated by Capote himself. The short story is also available on the web.