Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511240021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-31 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When the first contest was held in 1988, a reader kindly sent a clipping about an American Express survey that found fruitcake was considered the "worst" holiday gift. If so, it may be that most people make their cakes too sweet. Our object here is to produce a cake in which many fresh and natural flavors present themselves, not overpowered by sugar; and, when cut, reveals a harmony of texture and color.
Past readers will note that in addition to some minor changes, I'm adjusting the recipe for a more reasonable output of five 3-pound cakes, using standard meatloaf pans.
Here's your shopping list:
4 cups plain bread flour
4 Tbsps. ground nutmeg
4 Tbsps. ground allspice
1 lb. butter
1 lb. light brown sugar
12 large eggs
1 lb. dark raisins
1 lb. light raisins
1 lb. figs, cut in pieces
1 lb. chopped dates
1 lb. candied fruit rind, mixed colors
1 lb. dried pineapple, cut in strips
1 lb. broken English walnuts
1 lb. broken pecans
16 oz. orange marmalade
2 cups prune juice
2 cups ruby port
After assembling your ingredients, let the raisins, figs and dates soak overnight in the prune juice and port wine.
Next day, sift flour, nutmeg and allspice (spices must be fresh) into your largest pan, preferably the bottom half of a roaster. Sift again just to be sure and dump in the walnuts and pecans, turning them over until well-coated with flour and spices.
In a separate bowl, working with softened (not melted) butter, cream in or blend the brown sugar. Using two other bowls, separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs, blending yolks with the butter/sugar mix. Add all this to the floured nuts in large pan. Beat whites into frothy peaks and set aside.
Here's the messy, fun part. With hands clad in rubber gloves, dump the fruit that has been soaking, along with any liquid not absorbed, into the batter/nut mix, adding the candied fruit rind and dried pineapple that wasn't soaked. Then, melding thoroughly, add marmalade. Cookbooks will tell you to fold in the beaten whites. But with batter this heavy you have to cram the stuff in wherever you can and keep on melding.
Now for a chore I always hated, which wife Jane has mercifully made her own and done so much better: lining the baking pans with heavy brown paper. For meatloaf pans, cut pieces 10 inches by 14 from old grocery bags, greasing one side with butter. Using scissors and fingers, crimp paper neatly into the bottoms of your pans, leaving some hanging over to lift the cakes out.
Scooping great globs of the stuff with still-gloved hands, fill the pans, patting down and rounding off. If exhausted, let your cakes sit overnight in a cool place and dream of cooking them by the dawn's early light. I do.
Recipes I've collected give many different baking instructions, some frankly absurd. And ovens vary. Trial and painful error convince me that for cakes this size, an oven preheated to 275 degrees is best, with the temperature reduced 25 degrees every 30 minutes for the first two hours. After the third hour of baking at 175 degrees, turn the oven off and leave the cakes in until only warm.
Unless you have a modern convection oven, baking will be best done with cakes on the middle rack only, which may require two sessions. Using both racks is fine if you move the cakes around every 45 minutes. Bigger cakes take longer, of course, but I still favor more moderate temperatures for baking. The object of our desire is a cake with a rich brown color, firm, not hard to the touch. Add moisture to the baking process by placing port wine in a small pan at the bottom of the oven.
When the cakes are cool, lift them out by the brown paper, which stays with the cake until served, and store them in a closed container with a few pieces of apple and a small cup of spirits. While cakes thus stored are good for many weeks, they're never better than when eaten warm from the oven. Longer storage requires wrapping with cheesecloth soaked in brandy, but people don't seem to go in for heirloom fruitcakes much anymore, which is just as well.
Winning a cake
If it all seems too much, send me a memory of Christmas past that's dear to you. To set the mood, let me share one of many wonderful entries in the first great fruitcake contest. A woman recalled a Christmas package sent to her father, stationed in England during World War II. When the kindly postman handed over the parcel he shook his head sadly, "I'm afraid your bottle is broken." It wasn't, of course, only a fruitcake from grandmother liberally "anointed" with brandy for its long voyage in a world at war.
Share your Christmas memory with me at Route 1, Box 103, Goode, Va. 24556. If you don't win one of our cakes, at least we'll have your address to return a greeting.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB