The Diva of Domesticity, Martha Stewart, says the rhythm of creating a fruitcake can be soothing during the holiday rush. She also says you can excuse yourself from holiday obligations by saying "the fruitcake needs tending."
Depending on how patient you care to be, fruitcakes can take between one day and one year to finish. The process breaks down into three steps:
1. Chopping an infinite number of fruits and nuts and soaking them in rum for a day or twelve. (I hear that in the Bahamas, people soak the fruits and nuts in rum for several months before assembling the cake!)
2. Baking the cake on low heat, then brushing it with brandy while it's still warm. (Fans of alcohol abstinence may substitute delectable fruit juices for the brandy glaze.)
3. Letting the cake "cure" for a day, a week, or a year...and brushing it intermittently with rum to keep it moist.
If the idea of "aging" fruitcake scares you, try to think of fruitcake as a sweet variety of cheese; it must ferment for the flavors to develop.
My mom went on fruitcake kick for a while. I remember her buying giant jars of red and green candied cherries for it. She doubled the recipe and filled the kitchen with gift-size fruitcakes, wrapped in colored cellophane. I'm pretty sure she skipped the rum part, but I was also too young then to know the difference. Whether boozy or not, I thought those fruitcakes were sure fun. Anything involving green maraschino cherries has to be fun, right?
Now that I've tried baking fruitcake, (loosely) based on the recipe mom used, I know that fruitcakes are a labor of love. By chopping the nuts, candying the fruits, letting the cakes age...you're basically creating an edible testament to the triumph of the human spirit. If dotty Aunt Dottie ever presents you with a home-made fruitcake, know she's also giving you hours of her hard work and thank her accordingly.
At the outset, I thought I could buy pre-candied fruits at the store, stir in the nuts and bake the cake in under an hour. When the store-bought red-and-green cherries tasted like dirt and sawdust--even after a good soak in rum--I candied the contents of our kitchen fruit bowl (tangerines) along with some cranberries and apricots. Once I candied the fruit, I thought, "In for a penny, in for a pound! Let's soak everything in rum for a day, too!"
Once the cakes baked, I wrapped them tightly and let them age in the fridge for a week, brushing them with a bit of brandy every few days. If you'd like to bake this in time for Christmas dinner, just let the filling soak in brandy all day today, then bake the cakes Christmas morning and serve. You could also start a new Christmas tradition: bake the fruitcake, wrap it tightly, and let it age in the freezer until next Christmas. People do this!
I hope you're able to incorporate some fruitcake into Christmas this year. Call it "me time" or share the prep with your family. Also, from my nutty heart to yours, have the happiest of holidays--whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, or just winter solstice.
(I first wrote about baking these fruitcakes for OPB's Arts & Life page. They did a whole article on how people either love fruitcake or love to hate it. Check out the controversy here!)
Crazy Aunt Fruitcake
liberally adapted from Janice Scott’s Brazil Nut Loaf
Makes 2 quick bread loaves or four mini-loaves
Fruits and Nuts:
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 cup roasted & salted cashews (Brazil nuts or pecans)
- 8 oz. pitted dates, diced (about 1 heaping cup)
- ½ cup dried apricots
- 1 cup red maraschino cherries, drained and soaked in rum
- 1 cup fresh-frozen cranberries
- ¾ cup glacéed (candied) tangerines or orange peel (with a little fruit left on) (glaze = ½ cup sugar & ½ cup water)
- 1 cup spiced rum (yes, you’ll have leftovers)
Batter:
- 1 1/2 C flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 C sugar
- 6 medium eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
The day before (or up to a week before):
Drain half the liquid from 10 oz. maraschino cherries. Replace the drained liquid with spiced rum. Let the mixture sit.
Snip the dried apricots into quarters, then soak them in a small bowl filled with hot water. Let them sit for 30 - 60 minutes while you dice the dates and prep other fruit.
Use kitchen shears to cut the dates into small squares. Place the dates in a medium-sized bowl. When the apricots are re-hydrated, drain the water and douse the fruit with spiced rum. Stir the dates and apricots well. Place a clean cloth over the bowl and let the fruits soak up more rum. Stir the fruit every so often.
Glacé the tangerines. Slice six small tangerines into quarters, using a sharp knife to cut away most of the fruit. Keep the rind plus a ¼” of fruit on each slice. Next, bring ½ cup water and ½ cup sugar (plus any tangerine juice you can save from your cutting board) to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in the tangerine rinds and let them roll on a medium boil for 5 - 10 minutes, until the skins turn semi-translucent and the syrup reduces.
While the citrus is being candied, take a cup of frozen cranberries and place them in a heat-proof bowl.
Remove glacéed tangerines from heat and poured the mixture over the cranberries. Let everything sit for a few minutes before stirring together the candied citrus, still-whole cranberries, and sweet syrup. Top with (you guessed it) rum, cover the bowl, and let the fruit sit.
On the day of baking:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease two loaf pans. Line the pans with parchment paper, then grease the paper. Set aside.
Drain the excess brandy off the fruits, but SAVE THE LIQUID. You’ll need it later, to brush the cakes with while they cure.
Stir the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together in a large bowl. Dump in the nuts and preserved fruits, and mix everything together with your hands. Set aside.
Wash your hands, then — using a clean, even larger bowl — beat the eggs with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Add in the fruit/nut mixture a cup or two at a time, mixing on a low speed. (You could also work with your hands again here.)
Pour the batter into your baking pans. Bake for between 1 ½ hours and 1 hour 45 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Peel away the waxed paper while the loaves are still hot. Brush the cakes lightly with rum while they’re still warm.
You could eat the cake now, or you could go for the gold and:
Let the cake cool, then wrap in rum-soaked cheesecloth. Place the loaves in an air-tight container for a week, checking every so often to add more rum to the cloth. Cure the cake for at least a week or even a month in a cool place (like the fridge.)
If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Ms. Rita's Banana Bread
Drunken berry cobbler
Dried fruit pie
