Fruitcake 2005, Mark 0
Oct. 24th, 2005 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
browngirlSo. This isn't the offer post. That's coming tomorrow, the 25th.
This is just the description post. Below the cut are descriptions of the four main kinds of fruitcake I'm sending, and options (like no alcohol and no gluten)
Unless otherwise requested, all cakes will be soused, frosted and decorated (that being half the fun) and will not contain nuts (I decided keeping nuts away from everything else was too much trouble), meat/meat products (no lard, suet, or mincemeat) or neon-colored nasty bits of plastic masquerading as fruit.
So, the cakes are:
1. Emily Dickinson's Black Cake. This is the closest recipe I've ever found to the cake I grew up eating. It is fudgy-textured and very rich (I did some jiggering around with the recipe to prevent last year's dry hockey pucks) It's got raisins, currants, and candied oranges (which I made myself!) in it. I may make layer cakes of this, if I figure out a shelf-stable filling.
2. Alton Brown's Fruitcake. This is a firm dark brown fruitcake full of good things, a variety of sensible dried fruits and apple cider and so on. I won't put the nuts in it, though. (I don't care for nuts in fruitcake.)
3. Chocolate Fruitcake. The recipe I liked best uses figs, cherries, dates, and raisins, and a healthy dose of chopped dark chocolate. It's otherwise much like Alton Brown's version, but probably a little less moist.
4. Honey fruitcake. This is the fruitcake where I put in wacky ingredients like elderberries and angelica and rosehips. Due to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathrynt's generosity, it should also contain quinces (which are my favorite rose family fruit, and deserve a journal entry all their own one day). If I can get some decent whiskey these'll be soaked in it rather than in brandy. And these will be decorated with candied flower petals, because I'm a romantic sort.
And now for the variant options.
1) Liquor free. I'll have to age these apart from the others, and the only cakes I think are moist enough to go dry are the Alton Brown and the Honey, but I can do this. Just let me know.
2) Gluten free. The Alton Brown cake works well with my no-gluten baking mix. I'll age these away from the others as well, and bake them on a different day. So, lemme know. My kitchen isn't gluten free, but I'll try.
So. Contemplate fruitcakes, and tomorrow I'll post the first offer. :D
I'm having *way* too much fun with this project.
This is just the description post. Below the cut are descriptions of the four main kinds of fruitcake I'm sending, and options (like no alcohol and no gluten)
Unless otherwise requested, all cakes will be soused, frosted and decorated (that being half the fun) and will not contain nuts (I decided keeping nuts away from everything else was too much trouble), meat/meat products (no lard, suet, or mincemeat) or neon-colored nasty bits of plastic masquerading as fruit.
So, the cakes are:
1. Emily Dickinson's Black Cake. This is the closest recipe I've ever found to the cake I grew up eating. It is fudgy-textured and very rich (I did some jiggering around with the recipe to prevent last year's dry hockey pucks) It's got raisins, currants, and candied oranges (which I made myself!) in it. I may make layer cakes of this, if I figure out a shelf-stable filling.
2. Alton Brown's Fruitcake. This is a firm dark brown fruitcake full of good things, a variety of sensible dried fruits and apple cider and so on. I won't put the nuts in it, though. (I don't care for nuts in fruitcake.)
3. Chocolate Fruitcake. The recipe I liked best uses figs, cherries, dates, and raisins, and a healthy dose of chopped dark chocolate. It's otherwise much like Alton Brown's version, but probably a little less moist.
4. Honey fruitcake. This is the fruitcake where I put in wacky ingredients like elderberries and angelica and rosehips. Due to
kathrynt's generosity, it should also contain quinces (which are my favorite rose family fruit, and deserve a journal entry all their own one day). If I can get some decent whiskey these'll be soaked in it rather than in brandy. And these will be decorated with candied flower petals, because I'm a romantic sort.And now for the variant options.
1) Liquor free. I'll have to age these apart from the others, and the only cakes I think are moist enough to go dry are the Alton Brown and the Honey, but I can do this. Just let me know.
2) Gluten free. The Alton Brown cake works well with my no-gluten baking mix. I'll age these away from the others as well, and bake them on a different day. So, lemme know. My kitchen isn't gluten free, but I'll try.
So. Contemplate fruitcakes, and tomorrow I'll post the first offer. :D
I'm having *way* too much fun with this project.
