Fruitcake!

Okay, so I was wandering through the post-holiday crap sales the other day and there it was! it was perfect! The heirloom fruitcake, "just like your grandma used to make!" It had shiny fruit and nuts on top, and a rich dark-crusted cake below. And it was made of plastic, so you'd never worry about someone/something eating it and dying.

On the other hand, there's no time like the present to start a family tradition.

So, since I'd already purchased most of the ingredients (last fall), I quick (not!) whipped out a fruitcake. And, if I start sousing it once it's cooled (tomorrow), it might be ready for gifting next year.

First off, a fruitcake is not for the faint of kitchen skills heart. It's not a particularly difficult thing to make, but it does take the better part of a day. (which reminds me of this XKCD comic...) Example: the one which is currently in the oven. Still. (I lied - it's not done yet so I can't have whipped it out yet.)

To begin, fire your oven to very slow... ever notice that nobody writes new fruitcake recipes? there's gotta be a reason. Anyway, very slow oven is about 120C, or 250F. Okay, honestly you don't need to preheat your oven yet; it's going to take for frigging ever to get this whole shindig together.

To start with, you'll be baking this in a tube pan, known as an angelfood cake pan in our house. Prepare this first because it's going to be a royal pain in the putukus. You will need generous quantities of both shortening and baker's parchment. If you don't know what that is, it's a paper you can use to line cookie sheets and other baking pans and the cookies will slide right off as well as leave your baking pans unbesmirched - the coolest thing I ever learned about baking was how to use baking parchment. Anyway, cut a circle of parchment to fit the bottom of your tube pan. Now cut a strip to fit the outside of the pan; this required a pretty long piece for my pan, so I ended up wasting a lot of paper figuring it out. Once you have pieces that fit, put a heavy layer of shortening on the pan, and grease one side of the parchment. Put the parchment in the pan so the greased side of the parchment will be toward the cake. Now arrange any nuts, candied cherries, candied pineapple, or whatnot you want on the top of the cake on the bottom of the pan, remembering to turn the nuts (pecan or walnut halves) upside down so they show up correctly when the cake is out of the pan.

Better gather your ingredients, it may take a while. Three and a third cups cake flour. No, general purpose flour won't do. (Maybe it would, but with this much money in dried and candied fruit I'm not taking chances.) A teaspoon each of baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, and a half-teaspoon each of cloves and mace. No, nutmeg won't do. Sift these together thoroughly (the recipe says do it three times, but I did a heavy mix by hand and then a single sifting.)

On to the slow stuff! Plump four and a half cups of raisins, and four and a half cups of currants, in a very large bowl by pouring boiling water over and setting aside for a bit. Measure out a cup of citron peel (be wary: most grocers try to pass off 'mixed peel' as citron peel - it isn't.) Beat 6 eggs together thoroughly. Have grape juice and light molasses at the ready to be measured.

Now, actually starting to mix, take a 1/2 pound of butter (1 cup) and cream it very well. Cream in one cup of sugar. Add beaten eggs, but don't worry about trying to get it perfectly blended; it ain't gonna happen. Add drained fruit, 1/4 cup grape juice, and 3/4 cup light molasses, and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture in 3 or 4 additions, beating after each addition until smooth and completely blended.

Carefully turn the batter into the prepared tube pan, trying not to dislodge your pretty patterns (it is actually more common at bakeries to add this bric-a-brac after the cake is done, gluing it down with a corn syrup varnish. But I figured I'd be old fashioned about it.) Then put it in the very slow oven for 4.5 to 5 hours, or until done.

No, I have no friggin' clue how to test if this cake is done. At a guess, the toothpick or silver knife test half way between the outside and inside edges.

Anyway, cool the cake almost completely before trying to unmold the sucker. At least, that's what I'm gonna do. I suspect being a bit premature will result in the cake crumbling out of the pan.

I should mention I found this recipe (with ever so slightly different directions/commentary) online. Natch. And, unlike most fruitcakes, it doesn't have any nuts except decoratively, although the currants are sometimes a bit seedy.