Tag: raisins

My Fruitcake Brings All the Boys to the Yard: Redux

Last year, I made my family’s fruitcake for the first time. It was tremendously good. (If the words “fruitcake” and “tremendously good” are not really making sense to you, let me just say: currants soaked in brandy; candied orange peel; an awful lot of butter. Taste some, and you’ll understand.)

fruitcake

Unfortunately, I failed to make any proper notes about how I did it. And the anxiety of confronting the existing recipe (yield: 12 pounds, with my mother’s notes on top of her mother’s recipe, plus instructions to call my dad for extra advice) made me put off the project this year.

My fruitcake should have been soaking in brandy and rum since, oh, August would’ve been nice. But somehow that didn’t happen, and now it’s December. Which I had basically decided was too late.

But then I decided that the real point of Christmas baking is not so much to have sweets on hand for Christmas or parties or gifts or whatever. The point of it–of investing in the best cheap brandy at the liquor store (Paul Masson, my father avers), covering your kitchen in flour and giving yourself a sugar fit from tasting the batter too much–is to get yourself in the Christmas spirit. Really, nothing says holidays like dried fruit soaked overnight in booze. Or candied orange peel with brandy.

So, that’s what I did this weekend. I listened to the radio and baked. I tinkered with the recipe, and actually took notes. I was working off my mother’s typed recipe (on her old manual typewriter, which had cursive letters and no upper case), titled “mama’s fruitcake with incredible modifications.” Not sure what those modifications were, but in modern times, in the email she sent accompanying it, she wrote

beat in the 15 beaten egg yolks….beat egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold in. or add the eggs, beaten together all at once in the beginning, whatever.

I went with “whatever.” My feeling is that there’s barely any cake anyway–there’s only enough to hold all the fruit together–and it’ll be soaked with booze. So it doesn’t matter if it’s all airy and fluffy from the egg whites. But this is how knowledge gets lost, so I’m mentioning that option, just for the record.

Anyway, the result: a manageable four pounds of fruitcake, worth its weight in gold. It’s sitting downstairs, waiting for its brandy-soaking. So, it might not be at its peak at Christmas, but it will still taste good…and it’ll taste great in the depths of February, when I really need a brandy pick-me-up. And even more important: I now feel vaguely Christmas-y. Or maybe just drunk. Hard to tell.

Nana’s Fruitcake with Even More Modifications

This recipe is pared down from the original 12-pound yield to about 4 pounds worth of cake–I use one standard-size loaf pan plus two half-size loaf pans. But if you’re doing this for the masses, to give away, you can obviously scale the recipe back up–if you multiply by three, make it an even pound of butter and a pound of brown sugar.

1 pound golden raisins
1/2 pound currants
1 cup blanched, slivered almonds
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1/2 cup brandy (or 1/4 cup brandy and 1/4 cup port)
1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground nutmeg (about 1/2 a whole nutmeg)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
10 tbsp butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
5 eggs

For the candied orange peel:
2 oranges
1 tbsp brandy
1 tbsp water
4 tbsp sugar

The night before you’re planning to bake, toss the raisins, currants and nuts together in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Pour over the brandy (or brandy and port) and stir well to coat everything. Before you go to bed, flip the container, then flip it again in the morning–you want to distribute the booze well. In the morning, pour the fruit and nuts into a strainer placed over a bowl and let any remaining brandy drain out. Set the brandy aside for later.

chixsoup 021Make the candied orange peel: Wash your oranges well and, using a vegetable peeler, slice off the outermost layer of peel, taking as little of the white pith as possible. Chop the peel into fine slices (never mind that beautiful photo to the right–it’s much easier to slice the peel up before it’s candied). Set the peel in a heavy skillet and cover with water; simmer for 10 minutes, discard the water and add fresh (this is to remove some bitterness). Simmer for another 10 minutes, then drain. Combine the brandy and sugar with an additional 1 tablespoon of water. Pour this over the peel and and simmer until the peel is translucent and most of the liquid has cooked away. (You may need to add another tablespoon or so of water before the peel is properly clear.) Set out on parchment or waxed paper to cool.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Prepare your loaf or cake pans: butter and flour them, or line with parchment paper. (I make parchment slings, folded over each long side of the loaf pan, then butter each short side of the pan. Then you can lift the loaf out with the parchment wings.)

Proceed with the cake: Sift 1/2 cup of the flour over the drained fruit and nuts, tossing gently to cover everything. Sift the remaining 1 cup together with the allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

With a mixer, whip the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue beating until the butter lightens in color and the sugar dissolves. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well to incorporate each one. Turn the mixer to low and add half the flour-spice mixture. When it is incorporated, add 3 tablespoons of the brandy that was strained out of the fruits and nuts (make up the difference with fresh brandy if necessary). Then add the remaining flour. Fold in the fruits and nuts and stir well to combine.

Pour the batter into the pans and bake until evenly browned on top and firm–the cake should spring back when pressed lightly. This takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes for half-size loaf pans and 1 hour and 30 minutes for a full-size loaf pan.

Remove to a rack. When the loaves are cool, sprinkle with brandy and/or rum, then wrap tightly in cheesecloth and waxed paper. Store in a tin with a tight-fitting lid. Every week or so (or, if you’re on an accelerated schedule like me, every few days), drizzle the loaves with a bit more booze. Give them as much time as you can–inevitably, the cake will be at its best about a week after you finally give in and eat it.

Faux Stollen–Just as Tasty as the Real Thing!

I’ve been on a little bit of a Christmas baking kick. One of the things I got hungry for a couple of weeks ago (before Thanksgiving, even) was stollen–a German Christmas bread with cardamom and almonds.

stollen 017

My mom used to be all over the bread-making–she did a batch of whole-wheat bread every week or so, she made fantastic sticky buns every so often, and she was not daunted by making stollen, which is also a yeast bread. We had it every year for Christmas breakfast.

But then…the regular bread-making tapered off. Then the treats like sticky buns went. (I think this had to do with my mom starting to do real paying work–the brutal ’80s. Also, we moved to a house with a less inspiring kitchen.) And then the stollen gave out.

But not in a bad way. It’s just that my mom found a recipe for a quick-bread version of stollen (ie, no yeast required) in a most unlikely spot: The Vegetarian Epicure, by Anna Thomas. In its day, it was a classic, but it now seems to be out of print. Vegetarians don’t have a great reputation for baking, but this recipe alone rights several decades of carob-based wrongs.

Which is not to say I haven’t tinkered with it. I replaced mace with nutmeg, for instance–I figured that if I, who keeps a very extensive spice rack, have no other call for mace the whole rest of the year, it’s just not worth it. And candied lemon peel–too icky-sweet. I also make it in a food processor sometimes, which is handy (and helps infuse the bread with the flavor of the fresh lemon peel).

And in perhaps the most genius innovation (if I do say so), I split the recipe into two small loaves–one for eating fresh, and one for freezing and eating later. We’ve only got two mouths here on Christmas morning this year, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to finish the better part of a whole loaf myself, and then moaning all day about how my stomach hurts. The bread has quite a bit of butter in it, see, but that doesn’t stop me from slathering a little bit more on each slice.

stollen 023

Almond-Cardamom Christmas Bread (aka Faux Stollen)

This recipe relies heavily on a food processor, though I do suggest other options in the instructions. The only thing that it’s really nice to have a food processor for is grinding the almonds. So if you don’t have one, you’ll want to buy 3/4 cup of ground almonds or really go to town on some sliced almonds with a sharp knife, or pound them in a mortar.

Makes 2 6-by-4-inch loaves, or one 10-by-6-inch loaf
3/4 cup sugar
zest from 2 lemons
1 cup blanched sliced almonds, divided
2 1/2 cups flour, divided, plus more for kneading
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (about half of a whole nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (seeds from 8-10 cardamom pods)
13 tablespoons butter, chilled and divided
1 cup cream cheese (one 8-oz. package)
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons brandy
1 cup golden raisins
Confectioner’s sugar (optional, for garnish)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Pulse to combine–about 6 or 7 one-second pulses. (If you’re not using a fo-pro, just mix the sugar and zest together well in large bowl.) Add 3/4 cup sliced almonds and pulse again, until they are coarsely ground. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour, plus the baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cardamom. Pulse again to blend well.

Cut the butter into tablespoons. Add 12 tablespoons to the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand. (If no fo-pro, mix the butter in using a pastry cutter or two knives–whatever strategy you’d normally use for making pie crust.) Pour the contents of the food processor into a bowl.

Cut the cream cheese into small blocks and place in the food processor bowl (no need to wash it). Add the egg and run the processor to combine. While the processor is running, add the vanilla and brandy through the feed tube. (The Vegetarian Epicure suggests using a blender for this–so ’70s! And of course you could also use an electric mixer.)

Pour the cream-cheese mixture into a large bowl and stir in the raisins. Gradually stir in flour mixture with a wooden spoon or wide spatula, then add the remaining cup of flour, until you wind up with a thick, ragged dough.

Work the dough into a ball and turn it out on a heavily floured board. Knead it for just a minute or so, until it is reasonably smooth and holds together. Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into an oval, about 6 inches long and 5 inches wide. With the blunt edge of a knife, crease it just off center, lengthwise. Fold the smaller side over the larger and place the stollen on an ungreased baking sheet. (You can also make one large loaf, starting with an 8-by-10-inch oval.)

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a small pan. Brush the loaves lightly with melted butter, then scatter over the remaining 1/4 cup sliced almonds. Bake for about 50 minutes–the bottoms of the loaves will be dark brown, and a toothpick stuck in the center will come out oily, but with no crumbs, though the whole thing will seem alarmingly underbaked. (A single large loaf will take more like 1 hour and 10 minutes to bake.)

Allow the loaves to cool slightly on racks, then dust with confectioner’s sugar. Allow to cool fully–at least a couple of hours–before slicing, to allow the center to set; plus, the cardamom and lemon flavors are stronger in the cooled bread.