Meta Givens has a pretty good fruit cake recipe. It used the candied fruits, golden raisins, nuts, regular dark raisins, molasses, etc. You bake it, then douse it with some fruit flavored brandy and then decorate it if desired, and you can also put a glaze over it as well. Using the brandy or other choice alcohol helps set it and ripen it, and it freezes well, but you have to let it ripen for 4 weeks first. If you would like the recipe, I would be happy to give it to you. The recipe is pretty large, but I could certainly cut it down for you, or you could do that yourself if you wanted to. Oh heck, I'm going to just give you the recipe. I was trying to get away without having to type it all out because I'm really tired from being up all night baking this fruit cake of all things as well as some cheesecakes. lol.
OLD FASHIONED
FRUITCAKE:
original recipe divided by 4, all ingredients should be at
room temperature.
Soak Fruit overnight in ½ cup of medium syrup, about 24
hours to soften fruit: recipe at bottom.
Fruit mix:
3 ¼ -oz. seedless raisins = ¼ box 15 oz. seedless raisins
7 ½-oz. Golden raisins = ½ box golden raisins
1 6 – 8 oz. pkg pitted dates, cut into slices
½ lbs. candied citron = 8 oz.
¼ lbs. candied pineapple = 4 oz.
1 oz. candied orange peel
1 oz. candied lemon peel
2 oz. candied cherries
2 oz. blanched almonds slices
Mix dry ingredients
together:
1 ½ cups flour, sifted
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt less a pinch
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp allspice
2 shakes of ground cloves, the original amount is ½ tsp
2 shakes of ground nutmeg, the original amount is ½ tsp
2 shakes of mace, the original amount is ½ tsp
Cream together:
½ stick of butter or 4 TBSP
¼ cup Brown sugar plus 2 tsp, packed
1 egg
2 oz. currant jelly, but apple jelly or other jelly may be
substituted.
¼ cup light molasses
3 oz. buttermilk alternating with dry ingredients
Add wet ingredients to dry and mix in candied fruits.
To make syrup,
heat ¼ cup sugar and ½ cups water to boiling, then simmer 5 minutes. Add 2 ½ tsp white corn syrup. The full recipe makes 2 large fruit cakes
loaf pans plus 7 of the half-sized loaf pans.
This is enough batter to make a large tube pan cake.
Prepare your pans by lining them with parchment paper or
take a brown grocery sack and cut it to the shape of your pan, or use brown
wrapping paper and cut it to shape of pans covering all sides and leave 1 inch
over top edge to help get cake out of pan if using loaf pans. Butter inside of pans to help adhere paper
liner to them. Brush on a little whole
milk on top, to help keep cakes from browning on top too much and to help give
it a nice shine. Bake fruitcake between 275˟F.
and 325˟F. for about 1 hour, or until done depending on the size of your
baking pan, but do not go higher than 325˟F.
Put a pan of hot water on bottom rack of oven when baking fruit cake. If they start to get too brown, add a piece
of foil over them or parchment paper.
*Note! It is much easier to just get one of
the small containers of chopped mix fruit to use in recipe plus the dates and
raisins added extra. I always make the
full recipe, plus I add the dates and raisins, plus about 1/3 of a container of
candied red cherries as the fruit mix already has red and green candied
cherries. I use the rest to decorate the
cake after I glaze it. I use apricot
brandy to drizzle on top of the fruitcake, then make an apricot glaze to add on
top, then add my halved candied cherries on top and or whole pecans to decorate
the fruit cakes. Wrap them in plastic
wrap and let them ripen in a cool dark place.
After 4 weeks you can wrap freezer paper around them or heavy-duty foil
and freeze them. We’ve had fruitcake
last in the fridge for a full year due to the brandy and sugar content. They were perfectly fine, and I’ve also
frozen them. Either way is fine.
Apricot Glaze:
½ cup cold water
1 cup white sugar
2 oz. chopped apricots
Boil for about 5 minutes the add ¼ cup white corn
syrup and cook for another 1 minute. I add
a little apricot brandy to it once it’s cooled down slightly for more flavor.
Q
Excellent recipe!
Q