Peek: Fruitcake

Hello, it's me, Khenal.  I wanted to share with all of you a little of what I've been up to this Christmas Eve: making fruitcake.  If you don't like fruitcake, I'd like to change your mind.  If you've never had it, I suggest trying it.  Just don't go out and buy one.  Those who dislike fruitcake probably had purchased ones, which usually have citrin.  That is the unpleasant bitter orange taste that overpowers most fruitcakes you can buy.  They also have fake jellied fruit and are just... really not good.  It might be a bit late for you to get the ingredients in time for Christmas, but there's nothing wrong with making it a bit late.  I probably will be.  The fruitcake is pretty in demand around here.  Anyway: the recipe.

1 cup golden raisins

1 cup currants (normal raisins if you can't get them)

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup dried cherries (which are great in brownies, too)

1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped (they come a bit big, so just cut them down some)

1 lemon, zested

1 orange, zested

1/4 cup candied ginger (sometimes sold as crystalized ginger, same thing.  Might need to be chopped, depending on how it's sold in your area.)

1 cup gold rum

1 cup sugar

8 ounces (1 1/4 sticks) butter

1 cup unfiltered apple juice

4 cloves, ground (maybe 1/4 tsp)

6 allspice, ground (maybe 1/2 tsp)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1 3/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 cup pecans (or ignore if you don't like nuts)

Put dried fruit, candied/crystalized ginger, and both zests into a pot and add the rum to macerate overnight.  Macerate is just marinating for fruits.  If you want it now, instead of tomorrow, put in a plastic bowl instead and microwave for 5 minutes.

Once it's all macerated, get it into a pot along with the sugar, butter, apple juice, and spices.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5-10 minutes.  We're getting all the fruit to know each other and the other flavors better, and also cooking off most of the alcohol in the rum.  I usually simmer until I can smell most of the booze is gone.  Then pull it from the heat and let it cool.  You can even make the recipe until here and just toss it into the fridge until you have the time to finish and bake.  Just make sure it's cool enough that you can leave a finger in it without any worries.  We're going to be adding eggs soon, and we don't want to accidentally cook them before they can integrate.

Once ready to bake, heat oven to 325F.

Sift in the flour, salt, powder, and soda, and bring it together with a spoon or something similar.  Then add the eggs one at a time, until they're fully integrated.  It should look like there's not much cake to this cake, but trust me, it'll be fine.  You can then add in the nuts, if you want them.

Spoon it into a loaf pan, definitely grease, potentially grease and flour, depending on how easy your loaf pan lets things go.  I actually have a bunch of mini-loafs I like to use.  For one big loaf, cook for about 1 hour, and stick it with a toothpick to make sure it's done.  For mini-loafs, it's about half that time.  I've even tried it in a muffin tin.  It also took about 30min, but the fruitcake doesn't like to let go of the muffin wrapper.

And viola: not just edible fruitcake, but pretty dang good fruitcake!  You can also spritz the fruitcake after with a little brandy, but I personally can take it or leave it.  Up to you.  And no, this isn't my recipe.  This is Alton Brown's fruitcake recipe.  I'm sure you can find it on the internet if you want to follow him a bit more exactly.  Either way, I hope you all try it at least once, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas :)