Here's a white fruitcake recipe that was posted here last year I think. We tried it and highly recommend it.

WHITE FRUITCAKE

Preheat oven to 275 degrees (slow) and mix together:

1 c. cooking oil
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 eggs

Beat electric mixer for 2 minutes.

Sift together:

2 c. sifted Gold Medal flour
1 tsp. double action baking powder
2 tsp. salt

Stir in oil mixture alternately with 1 cup pineapple juice, apple juice or orange juice. (We used pineapple.)

Mix in separate bowl:

1 more c. sifted flour
1 c. thinly sliced citron
1/2 c. thinly sliced lemon peel
1 c. candied pineapple, cut in pieces
1 1/2 c. whole candied cherries
3 c. seedless white raisins (1 lb.)
3 c. nuts, in lg. pieces

Pour the batter over floured fruit. Line with brown paper 2 greased and floured loaf pans, 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 2 1/2". Pour batter into pans. Place a pan of water on lower oven rack.

Bake cakes 2 1/2 to 3 hours and after baking cakes let cakes stand for 15 minutes before removing from pan. Cool thoroughly on rack and when cool, remove paper.

Soak cakes with apricot or peach brandy (we used apricot) by brushing with a pastry brush. Store by wrapping tightly in aluminum foil. Keep in dry area until ready to use.

Dave

Pecans, almonds, and even macadamia nuts are great with fruit cakes. My mom used to make one with seeded raisins, which are hard to find now. Also her recipe called for dried currents. Wish I knew where the recipes went, but my brother had posession of them, and they are now lost forever.

Thanks for reminding us Ken, and thanks for the site URL, though most of my fruits are from home-dehydrated, I'll still need the essential citron and pineapple, macadamias would be over the top wonderful.

I have always loved fruitcake and when I made it a few years ago my grandchildren (all under 10) loved it - never having had it before. There have been so many jokes about door-stop fruitcakes that our 30-40 yr old children won't even look at them, remembering it as tasteless dry cake with gooey fake fruit "cough-drop" flavors from the store bought ones. I keep trying to have them at least taste it homemade. No luck so far, maybe this year.

Using quality dried fruits and a good recipe, like Dave's, brings a whole new generation to the appreciation of a very tasty special winter treat.

Nancy

For the finicky eaters, suggest that you give them a small piece to eat while being blindfolded!! I bet they will not even know what they are eating, and will want more. Its especially nice with a lot of booze soaked into it too. Years ago, Woolworths had a brand of candied fruits that were nice big pieces. wish I knew where they got them from. My favorits are the red and green cherries ane the pineapple, both yellow and green color. Citron is ok, but needs to be a bit softer so its not hard and gummy. I would probably soak the citron in a bit of water and lemon juice, so it softens a little before adding to the fruit cake. I still hae a nice bottle of cranberry liquor which I pour on, as well as Cointreau.

Here are the recipes that have been posted on here the past few years. I usually use all light-colored fruit in the yellow one, and cherries in the dark one. This year I'll use blueberries too. I used dried fruit, not candied.

Melissa

RE: Church of the Besotted Fruitcake

* Posted by: Readinglady z8 OR (My Page) on Sat, Oct 8, 05 at 22:29

Here's the recipe from that thread with her comments. (We actually ended up with two lengthy fruitcake threads, as I remember.) I don't think we've heard from Mrs. Bartholomew for a while. Hopefully she returns as fruitcake season moves into full swing.

"Here is the recipe I use for Christmas fruitcake - more or less, anyway, because I tend to use different types and proportions of fruits and nuts each year. I candy my own pineapple, angelica, and cherries, but you can use store-bought and give them a good rinse to get the extra sugar off before you use them. Makes two large loaves.

1/2 to 3/4 litre white rum
1 pound candied cherries (substitute angelica for a handful of the cherries, if you have it)
3/4 pound candied pineapple
1/4 pound candied citrus peel
1 pound large sultanas
1/2 pound blanched whole almonds
1/2 pound walnut halves
1 pound unsalted butter, softened
2 and 1/4 cups of sugar
6 large eggs
4 cups of white cake flour (not self-raising)
1/4 cup lemon extract

Warm 1/2 litre of the rum until it seems just about to boil, and immediately remove it from the heat. Soak the cherries, pineapple, citrus peel, sultanas, angelica and nuts in the rum overnight. Strain, reserving the rum, and set the fruits and nuts aside in a very large mixing bowl.

(You don't have to heat the rum up if it's too much trouble, but it soaks into the fruit much better if it's warm).

Beat the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in half of the eggs, then half the flour, then the rest of the eggs, then the rest of the flour, then the lemon extract. Pour the batter over the fruit and nuts and stir well.

If your loaf pans are non-stick, just butter them. I use a stick of butter like a crayon to do this. Otherwise, line with buttered parchment paper. Scrape the batter into the pans. Bake in a preheated 300 degree Fahrenheit oven for 45 minutes, then cover the pans with foil and bake for another 45 minutes. Watch carefully near the end of the cooking time; as soon as the cakes start to pull away from the edges, or resist when you poke them gently, they are ready. It is better to underbake than overbake.

Let them rest on a rack until they've cooled to room temperature.

When the cakes have cooled but are still in the tins, carefully poke several holes through each loaf with a long, thin skewer. Heat the reserved rum - again not letting it quite boil - and drizzle it over the cakes. If the fruit and nuts soaked up most of the rum, add another 1/4 litre of rum before heating it. Leave it for 15 minutes so that the rum will more or less soak through the cakes, although some may still remain in the bottom of the tins when you remove the cakes.

Wrap each cake carefully for storage. If you have large enough linen pudding-bags, you can lightly moisten these with rum and slip a cake inside each one. Otherwise, you can wrap the cakes in the brown paper they were baked in, which should be thoroughly permeated with the rum. Whether you've used cloth or brown paper, wrap the cakes in another layer of plastic wrap or tuck them into a plastic bag for further protection.

The longer you leave the cakes before serving, the better. If you won't be able to resist tasting, pour a little of the batter into a ramekin to bake it separately and eat it while you're wrapping the other two cakes."

I can see I need to buy the ingredients soon. Just reading the recipe makes my mouth water.

Carol

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It's Fruitcake Time Again!
Posted by gardengrl Orlando (My Page) on Thu, Oct 6, 05 at 9:03

Hi Everyone,

If you remember last year at this time, the Harvest forum had quite a thread going on fruitcakes. Well, last year I made two versions from posted recipes and they were the BEST! I call them "rum cakes" in order to avoid the fruitcake stigma. :-)

I made my cakes in October (both a dark cake and a yellow cake), refridgerated them (since I'm in the south), and "basted" them every week with whatever version of alcohol I wanted. They were a hit during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So, go raid your liquor cabinet gang; it's fruitcake time!
Here are two recipes from last year; both recipes make 2 fruitcake loaves when baked in a typical loaf pan. I've modified my versions a little from the original recipes.

Dark Fruitcake

Approximately 25 ounces of golden raisins (add more or less to your preference)
2 cups coarsly chopped walnuts or pecans
2 1/4 cups sifted, all purpose flour
1 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
5 eggs
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp each, cloves and mace (nutmeg)
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup blackberry jam or preserves

Optional: Place raisins and nuts in a glass bowl or pan and cover with dark rum or brandy. Allow to soak 24 hours. Drain and reserve the used liquor when finished.

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Mix flour with salt, baking soda, and spices, set aside. Cream shortening or butter until fluffy; Gradually add sugar and molasses. Beat in eggs, add flour mixture in increments until well mixed. Stir in raisins, nuts, orange juice and jam.

Line loaf pans with parchment paper. Spray parchment with non-stick spray. Pour batter evenly into two loaf pans and bake approximately 3 1/2 hours (or until toothpick inserted comes out clean). It really depends on how deep you pour the batter.

When done, take cakes out of oven, allow to cool for approximately 5-10 minutes. Invert loaf pans, remove cakes, and allow to cool on cooling racks. When cool, take a toothpick and poke holes into the top and bottom of fruitcake. Baste fruitcake with raisin infused rum/brandy, allowing liquor to soak into holes.

If your in the south, place cakes in an airtight container and store in the fridge. If up north in a cool environment, wrap cakes in wax paper followed by tin foil, and store in a cool place. Baste cakes with raisin liquor or other dark liquor every week until the holidays.

Yellow Fruitcake

White rum: optional

1 to 1 1/2 pounds of candied or dried fruit. I use a "harvest mixture" of dried fruit from Sams, which includes dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried strawberris, and dried blueberries.

1/2 pound of nuts (your choice, more or less nuts to your preference)
1 pound unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups sugar
6 large eggs
4 cups of white cake flour (not self rising)
1/4 cup lemon extract

Warm rum in a saucepan or microwave until it is just about to boil. If you don't want alcohol, feel free to use a juice of your choice. Place fruit and nuts in a large bowl or pan and pour hot rum/liquid over. Soak overnight, drain fruit and reserve the used liquor when finished.

Preheat oven 300 degrees

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in half the eggs, then half the flour, then the rest of the eggs, then the rest of the flour. Add lemon extract. Stir in soaked fruit and nuts.

Line 2 loaf pans with parchment paper. Spray paper with non-stick spray. Pour batter evenly into both pans. Bake cakes uncovered for 45 minutes, then cover with tin foil and bake another 45 minutes. Watch carefully near the end of cooking time; as soon as the cakes start to pull away from the edges of the pans, or resist when you poke them gently, they are ready. It's better to underbake than overbake. Remove cakes from oven and cool for 5-10 minutes. Invert loaf pans, remove cakes, and allow to completely cool on cooling racks.

Follow basting and storing process as listed for the dark cakes (basting with alcohol optional, you can use fruit juice). Use the reserved dried fruit infused liquor for basting. I alternate basting with Grand Mariner (sp?) every week.

Talk about timing!! I started the Annual Making of the Fruitcakes this weekend! I still use the two recipes above and have started to develop a cult following of people who LOVE them!

Each year I end up making more and more to give or send away.

I also suggest dried fruits too. Apricots, not the overly sweet type from Turkey, but eh much more tasty California ones are great to use, as are all kinds of dried berries, like cran, straw, raspberries- black and/or red, as well as any other dried fruits you have as favorites. Because they are quite dry, I would suggest that you rehydrate them slightly before adding to the batter. You don't want all the moisture being sucked up by the dried fruits when baking, leaving the cake part dry and crumbly.

Yes, start the besotting by soaking the dried fruit in your liquor of choice. :-)

Melissa

What a nice way to give everyone a nice 'glow' for the holidays. Booze soaked fruitcake!

H-m-m-m. Haven't made fruitcake in many years, but after reading this thread, I think this is the year I must start again (mouth is watering).