Fruitcake Contemplation

[browngirl]

The weather is finally warm and summery. What better time to contemplate December fruitcakeage?

I actually had a great time with last year's fruitcake offer, but I grew frantic. Let's see if this year I can standardize and organize things better this year.


I can't find a great many of my small cake pans, but that may actually be OK, because it forces me to use my plaques (basically, muffin pans). I currently have:

1 6-cake Texas Muffin pan, which used to be Wolf's popover pan
1 6-cake rose pattern pan, which makes cakes the size of large muffins
1 6-cake bundtlette-cake pan, which makes cakes the size of muffins
1 6-cake hamburger-bun pan, which makes 6 flat cakes sutiable for layering
2 12-cake "baby bundt" pans, which make 24 total cakes the size of small muffins (2&1/2 inches across). I should probably send those off in batches of three or four.

That's probably most of what I need. Most people liked the small size of the fruitcakes. For larger but still manageable fruitcakes I also have several 6-inch cake pans. I suppose I can make that an option.



To make fruitcakes I will obviously need:
A mess of dried fruit
Lots of spices
lots of flour, sugar, butter, eggs
several bottles of decent brandy and rum
a small bottle of Benedictine

Thank goodness for King Arthur Flour Company, Harvest Co-Op, and Costco! The liquor will probably be the most trouble to get; it was last year.

I'll also need lots and lots of waxed paper. What else will I need lots of that I'm not remembering...

And of course royal icing mix (MUCH easier to deal with than powdered sugar, egg whites, and lemon juice) cake decorations, and mailing boxes, from Sweet Celebrations. I should shop for all of this in September or October.



I think I'll stick to three. Emily Dickinson's Black Cake (which came out inexplicably dry last year---I'll have to jigger with the recipe), Alton Brown's Free-Range Fruitcake (which is such a great recipe, moist and delightfully heavy and foolproof), and a Honey Fruitcake. The Huney Fruitcake is where I'll let myself go wild with ingredients like rosehips, elderberries, and angelica. Maybe I'll bake that in the small cake pans.

*goes and finds recipes*




I want to not be as time-crunched as I was last year. Shop in September or October, make offer in October, bake in November, age (in WD's fridge *wave to WD*) for about a month, mail in December in batches, so it's not such an overwhelming task. That should work.



Boxes from Sweet Celebrations, parchment from the supermarket, address and return lavels, lots of tape and printouts of the recipes. The main things I ran out of last year were tape and time. I definetely want to spread the mailing out over several weekends if I can, so it's not as huge of a chore as last year. Without Tigerlily's help I might well not have finished.



If I save $20 a month from now till Xmas this should be pretty manageable. Now to discipline myself to do so. :) Maybe


Am I forgetting anything?

Comments

[anisoptera.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you are forgetting anything but I am remembering how good the cake tasted last year. Yummy, yummy.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Yes. The hazmat suit. Also the cost of kitchen cleanup after the EPA declares it a Superfund site. Fruitcake is a noxious substance.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Yet you're letting into your fridge.

That's sweet. (BTW, I also only dislike most fruitcakes).

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

hey, I'm a classic bachelor. My fridge is already a hazardous-waste zone. Not much lost.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

May I suggest that lest you get overwhelmed with sheer number of requests, you limit your offer to "first X who reply ("...and maybe a few others if I happen to have time and inclination").

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*nod*

The only problem is, though, no matter what limit I set, someone will miss the call and pout.

*ponders*

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I've heard good things about a liquor store in Waltham, with extraordinary selection and low prices. There is probably a local person with a car on your fruitcake list, who would be happy to give you a ride out there sometime in the next few months. I don't know the name of the place. I'm a little surprised to have the information here in my head, having lived in dry towns for the last 6 years (not entirely by accident). But people talk, and I listen.

[kshandra]

Emily Dickinson's Black Cake (which came out inexplicably dry last year---I'll have to jigger with the recipe)

Okay, it wasn't just me. *wry smile* (murphymom wound up not having any of it last year, because - and I didn't know this, or I'd've told you - she Doesn't Do rum.) It certainly smelled fabulous, though.

May I ask what you thought of ours? (Feel free to take it to email.)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Eeep, I'm sorry about that. (Is it just rum, or booze in general? This entry is, among other things, a place for me to make notes about how to do better at this this year.)

Actually, I never did get your fruitcake. I hope whomever did enjoyed it. :^/

OK, we'll definetely have a better fruitcake exchange this year, if you'll give me another chance. :D

[kshandra]

As she's no longer living in a 12-step household, Mom isn't actively avoiding alcohol, but apparently rum was one of the things she never really liked. I'll double-check with her next time we talk and see if there's anything else she'd prefer to avoid.

And I'm so sorry to hear ours never made it to you...we made a nutless batch and everything. *pout* Definitely try again this year.

[scarlettj9.livejournal.com]

MMMMMMMM. Mine was the Black Forest varity and it was delicious. Cold milk to wash it down and your all set! :)

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Mmmm..fruitcake. Though I'm another one of those weirdos who doesn't like alcohol, but I just have found fruitcake recipes that work fine without soaking. Of course now I forget if I've ever sent you any. I think I did at one point, but I'm not sure.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

That's a *great* userpic.

Hmmm. I don't have such a recipe in my files. I'd love one..... ;)

[poltr1]

Mmm. Browngirl's fruitcake. Happy yummy thoughts from the last holiday season.

And yay for being proactive and not reactive!

[cellio]

The memories of last year are making me drool. :-)

You probably want to limit numbers to keep yourself sane. You can lower ingredient costs by making the smaller sorts; good things can certainly come in small packages, after all!

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

The cake didn't last long around here once unwrapped! I'll look eagerly for where to sign up for one when next the opportunity arises!

[rms-butterfly.livejournal.com]

I also don't know if you left anything off your list, but I wanted to mention how delicious your fruitcake was last year! Neither my sweetie or his sweetie like fruitcake, so I had it all to myself. I ate it a bit at a time, keeping it in the fridge for a few days. Yum, yum, yum!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Don't forget to go to Wolf's restaraunt supply store for your supplies. Pailfuls of Plugra butter!

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

Please include me in, hon. And I loved the Emily Dickinson fruitcake.

[(Anonymous)]

You make fruitcake !!!!! Yummy!! How do you get yours to turn out properly- mine turn into lead bricks.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*grin* I hope you see this, since you posted anonymously. At any rate...

I'd like to see your recipe to analyze it, but here's some of what I do for my fruitcakes that helps.

1) Moisturizing ingredients--- liquid, fruit, honey, liquor. I have gotten really good results with Alton Brown's Free Range Fruitcake recipe, which has a lot of liquid, and the Honey Fruitcake, because honey holds moisture. I also liberally douse my fruitcakes in alcohol. :D And I realized that the reason my Emily Dickinson fruitcakes came out dry was that they didn't have enough ground up fruit in them (another ingredient that helps hold onto moistness).

2) Size. My fruitcakes are baked in novelty muffin/cakelet tins that take 3/4 cup of batter or 1 cup of batter each. I could make bigger fruitcakes, but I find that that size has a nice surface to mass ratio so that they cook evenly, alcohol penetrates, etc.

3) Aging. They really do get moister with age, and not just from the alcohol.