Fruitcake.
Dec. 14th, 2019 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickYeah, I know. It's a fucking joke dessert. Nobody I know actually enjoys the stuff. It's cloying. It has fake-colored green and red bits of... glue? The batter is invariably disappointing and there seems to be too much of it in the interstitial spaces between the fake-colored glue fruits. I don't think most fruitcakes contain a sufficient number of nuts. Candied orange peel is not a thing I believe in as an ingredient.
So I've been considering the fruitcake, in detail.
It's traditional. It can't have forever sucked this much or nobody would ever have made a second or third or fourth one.
Fruitcake is supposed to be made of things I like (nuts, dried fruits, citrus flavor, sugar) and I don't see how that winds up being a shitty fucking cake at the end. These are ingredients that you have to WORK AT making taste like ass.
I believe this can work. I have a family recipe for date nut bars that is delicious. It has a minimal amount of batter and rather a lot of dates and nuts. It ain't cheap to make, but it's delicious. My ex's mom's walnut-date loaf is outstanding, also a food item with lots of dates and nuts but not a lotta batter. I love both of these items.
So I think modern fruitcakes have too much batter and not enough fruits and nuts. Everything I've ever eaten that had fruits and nuts in sufficient quantity, with a minimalist binder-sort-of-batter... has been exceptional.
I also don't like candied things that are gummy and icky and fake colors. So, no candied cherries in bright green and red. That ain't happening. This is my fruitcake and we're gonna do what the fuck I want.
I like... dates. Medjool dates. I buy whole ones and pit them myself, the bought kind that are pre-pitted and chopped are disgusting and overly dry. GOOD dates.
I like dried apricots. A lot. There will be many dried apricots.
Candied pineapple, dried mango, craisins -- these are bright colors and do not taste like ass. There shall be some of these.
Nuts. I like nuts. There shall be almonds and pecans and pistachios and walnuts.
Batter will be minimalist and only enough to binderize the fruit and nuts.
Ingredients (largely lifted from the NYT but adapted to things I like. Minus prunes plus craisins, mangoes.) as follows.
1/2 lb dates, pitted and chopped by you, not the factory
1/4 lb craizins
1/4 lb candied pineapple chopped
1/4 lb dried mango chopped
1/2 lb dried apricots chopped into quarters
Fruit pieces should resemble "craizin size" when done chopping. Chop first before further prep.
-------
soak craizins, pineapple, mango in warm water to slightly plump, rinse 3x to remove excess sugar, drain well. (We are not liquor people so we don't do that.)
Apricots, dates do not need to be soaked.
Put all prepared fruit in a bowl.
Nuts:
1 cup pistachios (shelled)
1/2 cup almonds
1 1/4 cup pecan halves
1 cup walnuts
You don't need to chop the nuts. Just measure them. If there is, above, a nut you hate, then omit it and make up the volume with some other nut. Put them in a different bowl than the fruit bowl.
minimalist batter:
1 cup flour
2 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 t almond extract
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
Mix up batter, which is sort of gloopy. Combine batter with fruit pieces, being sure to break up all of the pieces (the dates stick together) and get all the pieces coated. Then do same with the nuts, which are easier to get all coated.
Line bread pan with parchment paper. Put mixture in bread pan, pushing down and packing fairly firmly. It should all fit.
Bake at 275, about an hour or so, until dry on top but not overly browned.
Remove from oven, brush with orange-flavored simple syrup. (1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, zest from 1 orange, bring to boil) Allow to cool half an hour in the pan, then remove. Brush a couple of times with a LIGHT coating of the orange simple syrup. I use a clean, new paintbrush for this. You could do booze, but we are not booze people.)
Wrap tightly, store in fridge.
Serve in extremely thin slices to people you like.
How is it? It is wonderful. It's also about forty dollars worth of ingredients, but it DOES NOT FUCKING SUCK.
So I've been considering the fruitcake, in detail.
It's traditional. It can't have forever sucked this much or nobody would ever have made a second or third or fourth one.
Fruitcake is supposed to be made of things I like (nuts, dried fruits, citrus flavor, sugar) and I don't see how that winds up being a shitty fucking cake at the end. These are ingredients that you have to WORK AT making taste like ass.
I believe this can work. I have a family recipe for date nut bars that is delicious. It has a minimal amount of batter and rather a lot of dates and nuts. It ain't cheap to make, but it's delicious. My ex's mom's walnut-date loaf is outstanding, also a food item with lots of dates and nuts but not a lotta batter. I love both of these items.
So I think modern fruitcakes have too much batter and not enough fruits and nuts. Everything I've ever eaten that had fruits and nuts in sufficient quantity, with a minimalist binder-sort-of-batter... has been exceptional.
I also don't like candied things that are gummy and icky and fake colors. So, no candied cherries in bright green and red. That ain't happening. This is my fruitcake and we're gonna do what the fuck I want.
I like... dates. Medjool dates. I buy whole ones and pit them myself, the bought kind that are pre-pitted and chopped are disgusting and overly dry. GOOD dates.
I like dried apricots. A lot. There will be many dried apricots.
Candied pineapple, dried mango, craisins -- these are bright colors and do not taste like ass. There shall be some of these.
Nuts. I like nuts. There shall be almonds and pecans and pistachios and walnuts.
Batter will be minimalist and only enough to binderize the fruit and nuts.
Ingredients (largely lifted from the NYT but adapted to things I like. Minus prunes plus craisins, mangoes.) as follows.
1/2 lb dates, pitted and chopped by you, not the factory
1/4 lb craizins
1/4 lb candied pineapple chopped
1/4 lb dried mango chopped
1/2 lb dried apricots chopped into quarters
Fruit pieces should resemble "craizin size" when done chopping. Chop first before further prep.
-------
soak craizins, pineapple, mango in warm water to slightly plump, rinse 3x to remove excess sugar, drain well. (We are not liquor people so we don't do that.)
Apricots, dates do not need to be soaked.
Put all prepared fruit in a bowl.
Nuts:
1 cup pistachios (shelled)
1/2 cup almonds
1 1/4 cup pecan halves
1 cup walnuts
You don't need to chop the nuts. Just measure them. If there is, above, a nut you hate, then omit it and make up the volume with some other nut. Put them in a different bowl than the fruit bowl.
minimalist batter:
1 cup flour
2 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 t almond extract
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
Mix up batter, which is sort of gloopy. Combine batter with fruit pieces, being sure to break up all of the pieces (the dates stick together) and get all the pieces coated. Then do same with the nuts, which are easier to get all coated.
Line bread pan with parchment paper. Put mixture in bread pan, pushing down and packing fairly firmly. It should all fit.
Bake at 275, about an hour or so, until dry on top but not overly browned.
Remove from oven, brush with orange-flavored simple syrup. (1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, zest from 1 orange, bring to boil) Allow to cool half an hour in the pan, then remove. Brush a couple of times with a LIGHT coating of the orange simple syrup. I use a clean, new paintbrush for this. You could do booze, but we are not booze people.)
Wrap tightly, store in fridge.
Serve in extremely thin slices to people you like.
How is it? It is wonderful. It's also about forty dollars worth of ingredients, but it DOES NOT FUCKING SUCK.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 10:44 pm (UTC)Ahem. Sorry. Fruitcake. Your recipe sounds wonderful. Somewhere, I have my grandmother's recipe for Norwegian Christmas bread...I've never actually attempted it, but it includes raisins (and citron and red and green cherries) and spices--although I'm sure it would be equally delish with dried cranberries or dried pineapple bits or the like.
I'd like to do some baking this season, but at the moment, I'm trying to do about six things at once around the house and failing miserably.
.