Booze.

Any fruitcake that will keep for a long time is usually saturated in rum. brandy, bourbon, whisky, etc. Alcohol is a great preservative.

Alexa

Yep, booze and they're usually aged for about 4-6 weeks in the refrigerator (or, in our case, the cool garage) before eating. We made ours early November because some are holiday gifts & needed to be ready by mid-December.

/tricia

Well, this is the one I want to make for a theme dinner party. Do you think it will hold up well?
Caribbean Christmas Cake (Known As Black Cake)
* 1/2 lb butter, softened
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons browning sauce (helps to darken the cake, especially if you don't use dark rum in the cake) (optional)
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon allspice
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 4 large eggs
* 1 cup dark rum (brandy can be substituted, as can red wine)
* 1/4 lb mixed peel
* 1/4 lb cherry
* 1/4 lb mixed nuts (unsalted) or 1/4 lb nuts, of your choice
* 1/2 lb prune, chopped
* 1 lb raisins
* 1 lime, zest of, freshly grated
* 1 lemon, zest of

Change Measurements: US : Metric

Directions:

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 2 hrs

1. 1 Preheat oven to 325°F; spray a nine-inch cake pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. 2 In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, vanilla and browning until soft and creamy.
3. 3 In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.
4. 4 In a third bowl, beat the eggs with the rum.
5. 5 Add egg mixture to butter mixture and thoroughly combine, then stir in zest, fruit and nuts.
6. 6 Fold in flour mixture; do not overbeat.
7. 7 Put batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for approximately 90 minutes, or until cake tests done; may need longer.
8. 8 Remove cake from pan when cool.

It's from food.com

It sounds pretty good to me but there is one change I would make.
Instead of a mysterious browning sauce, I would melt two squares of baking chocolate and add instead. It will deepen the overall flavor and color.

Nancy

That does sound like a good recipe, but I think Nancy is right on target. Skip the browning sauce.

You can darken as Nancy suggested with chocolate or cocoa or molasses or espresso powder or brown instead of white sugar or any combination of the above.

Of course then it wouldn't be quite the same recipe!

You can also just leave out the browning agent and not worry about the color.

Carol

GAAAAAHHHHHHH! GRRRRRRR! Well, I think not using the browning probably takes away the Caribbean thing. Now back to the GRRRRRRRR - I left out 1/2 cup of flour which I was supposed to add to the sifter after the spices and now I also remember as I type I left out the allspice as well (I HATE BAKING SO MUCH). Do you think it will turn out with the missing flour?

I'm unfamilar with "browning sauce" or Carribean Christmas Cake for that matter but here's the recipe I use for traditional English Plum Pudding & it's very good. It seems similar in concept to your recipe. Maybe, you could add the "browning sauce" to this recipe? One of the ones we make every year is shipped to our neighbor's Mum in England. This will be the 8th year we've shipped to her. She first ate it at our house & pronouned it better than she could get at home. Since I've never had it in England I can't say but everybody I've ever served it to has raved it's delicious. It does need to age though. I got the recipe a couple decades ago from Bon Appetit.

PLUM PUDDING WITH GRAND MARNIER HARD SAUCE
Makes about a dozen servings.
2 Cups Chopped Walnuts
1 3/4 Cups Dried Currants
1 3/4 Cups Golden Raisins
3/4 Cup Chopped Candied Orange Peel
3/4 Cup Chopped Candied Lemon Peel
1/2 Cup Chopped Candied Citron
1/2 Cup Chopped Pitted Prunes (dried PLUMS, hence Plum Pudding!)
1 Cup AP Flour
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Ground Allspice
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
2 Cups Dried Fresh Breadcrumbs, lightly toasted (you can use those crumbs in the paper tube affair...I won't tell)
1 Cup Firmly Packed Light Brown Sugar
3 Eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 lb. Ground Suet (I have to grind this in my food processor)
1 Granny Smith Apple, cored and finely chopped
1 Carrot, peeled and grated
1/4 Cup Fresh Orange Juice
1/4 Cup Grand Marnier
1/4 Cup Cognac
1 Teaspoon Sugar

Butter a 2 1/2 quart mold thoroughly (use a bundt pan w/o too many details)

Combine first 7 ingredients in a large bowl or stockpot. Mix in flour, salt, allspice, and ginger. Add breadcrumbs, brown sugar, eggs, suet, apple, carrot, orange juice, and Grand Marnier and mix well.

Pack tightly into prepared pan. Cover with parchment paper cut to fit.

Then, cover with foil and tightly seal foil down around edges of pan. Push your finger through the hole in the center of the bundt pan and crimp the foil down around the hole to seal.

Then, place another larger piece of foil over the entire pan and seal tightly at edges. Lastly, take a knife and poke through this second layer of foil where the hole is to allow steam to penetrate pan.

Place a rack in a large kettle and sit the pudding pan on the rack. Fill kettle with water to half-way up the sides of the pudding mold (pan). Cover kettle. Turn on the heat and bring to a strong simmer. Turn the heat down to a slow simmer.

Steam the pudding for 2 - 2 1/2 hrs. adding more water, as necessary.

After the pudding is done, discard all wrapping materials and allow the pudding to sit for about 5-10 minutes.

Place a plate over the pudding and flip to unmold.

Then, return pudding to the baking pan (you unmolded it just to make sure it didn't stick).

Heat the brandy and sugar in a small saucepan over low heat, swirling pan occassionally, until warm. Ignite with a match. Pour over pudding.

Wrap the pudding tightly and store in the refrigerator for 4-6 weeks to mellow.

Serve with hard sauce

GRAND MARNIER HARD SAUCE

1 Cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3 Cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 Cup Grand Marnier
1 Egg Yolk

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add Grand Marnier and yolk and beat until smooth. Transfer to a serving dish. Refrigerate until firm. Bring to room temperature before serving. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

/tricia

I don't get the "store in refrigerator" bit. We never store fruit cake in the refrigerator and Christmas is in high summer here. An airtight container on the counter does it for us. (I should note I've successfully kept Christmas cake unrefrigerated for nearly a year.) Why do you store it in the fridge?

Well, I never thought of "why" but I imagine it's because of the suet & the recipe came from a magazine. Their legal eagles, probably, review everything in the magazine & make "recommendations" to the editor. Ours stays in the garage because we make quite a few & don't have room in the refrigerator.

/tricia

The browning sauce is burnt sugar syrup....very little flavor but makes the cake veryd ark. You can make your own by mixing ome sugar with a little water and cooking it until it's very dark then add enough water to make a syrup.
I have done that and added a couple of teaspoons to a recipe of rye bread...
Linda C