Fruitcake Day

Today was fruitcake day at my house. I missed Stir-Up Saturday by a couple days, but not too late to get the cakes made and soaked and hidden away til Christmas. 

Making fruitcake is a family tradition. My English mother made them almost every year, allowing us to help when we were quite young, making our three stirs and making wishes, just as my mother did when she was a child. 

When Mom passed away, my sister's and I picked up the reins, and began getting together to make the cakes. The first year, 2006, was quite a teary affair as our father had also just passed away a few weeks before, just 10 months after Mom's death. But as time passed it became a joyous gathering. In 2020, Covid forced us to do the cakes in our own homes, sharing the process via Zoom. But after that, it became just a few sisters who got together.  I stopped making the cakes myself until last year, when I did them here by myself. Some of my sisters still get together but I no longer make the 5+ hour trip; winter is just too tricky a time to cross our mountains on my own. My sister's will get together this Wednesday, but I will be taking Larry to the VA in Huntington for several appointments, so for me today was the day.

This is one of two remaining cakes from last year. I've pulled them out periodically to add more brandy, bourbon, or whatever I had on hand to keep them moist and flavorful.

I had to taste it to see how it was aging. And here's the result:

Yum! Rich, moist, and full of deep flavor.  Well, you can't tell all that from my face, can you? But I promise, it was quite amazing. 

I decided to try something different this time. Years ago my cousin Mary sent me her mother's recipe for white fruitcake. I never tried it, but this year I wanted to give it a go. Could I find the recipe? Of course not. I finally gave up looking for it and found an AI recipe online, that is basically 

Eudora Welty's recipe. It has bourbon in it, and being that my aunt was ftom Louisiana, I figured it might be similar to her version.

Here's the fruit and nuts, stirred together with a bit of flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cakes. I was supposed to soak the fruit in bourbon overnight, but didn't want to wait til tomorrow to make the cakes, as we need to go out.

I also didn't use candied pineapple but used the standard fruitcake citron mix, candied red cherries, and golden raisins.

I used a mix of pecans and these hickory nuts that Larry has been carefully picking from the shells. On the right you can see a few chunks of shell he accidentally mixed in with the nut meat!

I like to use these small pans, as the cakes are easier to gift this way. Each pan has to be greased and lined on the bottom with parchment paper.

The eggs needed to be separated for the recipe too.

The final mix, below. I forgot to add the bourbon at the right time, oops! So I dumped some in when I remembered, and lowered the mixer into it, and splash! Bourbon went everywhere until I managed to turn the mixer to the lowest speed possible. No harm done, just a mess. The egg whites had to be beaten to stiff peaks before being added too. This is a lot more complicated than my mother's recipe, but on the other hand it uses far fewer ingredients. 

And the final results. These are very pretty.

Of course I had to cut and taste one, and Larry tried it too. Our verdict? The old recipe is much, much better! This one is delicate and tasty, and will improve with soaking and aging,  but I really doubt it will match the wonderful, complex flavor of my mother's recipe. Still, I am glad I tried it, just to satisfy my curiosity. If I have time, I may just mix up a batch of the old recipe too!