Posted on 12/20/2008 4:26:41 PM PST by JoeProBono
LOL, I used to know a blonde named Cindy that was about the same. I better stop now....
Wait 36 years and it will be appointed Senator of a northeastern State.
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.
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.
Yum!
There are only 3 of these in existence.
Everyone passes them around.
Owww.
2 spoons of Ofraud
and a cup of water.
I swear that’s true—and I get one every year. I stick it in the freezer and bring it out the following year and give it to someone else.
TEQUILA CHRISTMAS COOKIES
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup of nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle of Tequila
Sample the Tequila in a large glass to check quality
Take a large bowl, and check the Tequila again, to be sure it is of the h ighest quality. Pour one level cup and drink.
Turn on the electric mixer, Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point, it’s best to make sure the tequila is still ok, so try Another cup.
Turn off the mixerer thingy.
Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
Pick the frigging fruit and damm cup off the floor.
Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, just Pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the tequila to check for tonsisticity.
Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Check the Tequila
Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
Add one table.
Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.
Greash the oven.
Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.
Don’t forget to off beat the turner
Put the bowl through the window, finish off the booze and make sure to p ut the dirty stove in the dishwasher.
CHERRY MISTMAS TO ALL!
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.
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?
Seriously, for our recovering friends, use apple juice in place of the alcohol. It’s just as good.
If it’s not soaked in dark rum, it’s not fruit cake.
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.)
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