Greetings!
This recipe is for ang1e31 who requested a recipe for Christmas Cake
"I would like a recipe for Christmas Cake. It should include information including when is the best
time to make a Christmas Cake, how long should it lie before Christmas. What liqueur would you
recommend putting in cake."
Dark Fruitcake (USENET) Yield: 7 pounds
16 ounces Candied citron, fruit or peels 8 ounces Candied cherries 1 cup Dark raisins 1 cup Golden
raisins 1 1/3 cups Calmyra figs, cut into pieces 1 1/3 cups Dates (pitted), thinly sliced 1 1/2 cups
Pecan halves (or walnuts)
1/2 cup Brandy 3 cups All-purpose flour 2 teaspoons Baking powder 2 teaspoons Salt 1 tablespoon
Cinnamon, ground 1 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground 1 teaspoon Allspice, ground 1 teaspoon Cloves, ground 4
Eggs 1 3/4 cups Brown sugar, packed 1 cup Orange juice
2/4 cup Butter, melted, then cooled
3/4 cup Light molasses (treacle)
Mid-November is the best time to bake this cake. The cake develops its unique combination of tastes
as well as texture over this time, and also gives the baker time to mail or otherwise deliver gifts
of the cake.
Mix fruits together in a bowl. Pour brandy over fruits. Turn fruit mixture over every 20 minutes.
Soaking time is a matter of taste, but two hours is typical. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Prepare
tube pan: grease sides and bottom. Line bottom and sides with greased brown paper.
In a very large bowl, mix flour, spices, baking powder and salt. Stir until spices are evenly
blended throughout.
In a third bowl, beat eggs until fluffy. Add brown sugar, orange juice, molasses and butter. Mix,
making sure that all the sugar dissolves.
Pour off any liquid from fruit mixture and add the fruit and the nuts to the dry ingredients. Mix
until all fruit pieces are coated. Then pour in the liquids and mix gently until you have an evenly-
mixed batter.
Pour batter into pan and bake at 300 degrees F. for 1 hour. Cover pan with foil and bake for 1 hour
more or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 30 minutes before removing from
pan. Peel off paper very carefully.
Put cake in cake tin lined with foil. For the next 3 to 4 weeks, sprinkle a little brandy over cake
twice a week. Keep cake covered and store the tin in the refrigerator. If you prefer to omit the
brandy, cover top of cake with very thin slices of apple instead.
NOTES:
* An extravagant, traditional fruitcake -- This is about as rich a fruitcake as you could possibly
want to make. It started life as a Better Homes and Gardens recipe, but has been changed beyond
all recognition.
Yield: a 7 lb cake.
* This makes a HUGE cake. If your tube pan isn't at least 10 X 4 inches, there is a fair chance that
it will run over; in that case, use several loaf pans instead (fill loaf pans about half-way). A
pan with a removable center will make extracting the cake much easier.
* Except for mixing the liquids, an electric beater is useless for this recipe.
* In the USA, candied fruits typically come in packages of the indicated sizes. If you have to
measure by volume, use 2 1/2 cups of candied citron and 1 1/3 cups of the candied cherries. I
prefer citron instead of the mixture because there's no bitterness from the rinds, although
the cake isn't so colorful. Calmyra figs are the light-colored figs most commonly seen in
North America.
: Difficulty: moderate. Time: 2 hours preparation (including soaking the
fruit), 2 hours baking, several weeks mellowing.
: Precision: Measure batter ingredients carefully.
Fruit and nut quantities are somewhat flexible.
: Charles Wingate University of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.,
College Park, Maryland, USA
: seismo!mimsy!mangoe or [email hidden]
: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust
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