There are two types of cooks out there: Those who can throw a delicious meal together using whatever happens to be in the fridge in one hour’s time, and those who plan meals out weeks, sometimes months, in advance, and shop and cook accordingly. Certainly there are those of us who are capable of both, but there are die-hards on each end of the spectrum who would have a hard time converting from a last-minute cook to an advanced planner, and vice versa. But luckily there’s a cake recipe that works out for both types of cooks—especially if they know one another—and that’s friendship fruit cake.
Fruit cake, for all of its divisiveness, continues to be a culinary tradition Southerners keep around. Usually because someone in the family knows how to make a fruit cake that’s actually good and silences any naysayers. Friendship fruit cake is one of those sworn-by recipes, but preparing one is not for the faint of heart. Preparations begin a whopping 50 days before you want to eat the cake, so if you plan on it being on your holiday menu, it’s almost time to start prepping.
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Seven weeks before you want to bake your fruit cake, you have to begin your “starter,” a syrupy, sweet liquid that will allow you to candy your own fresh (or canned) fruit instead of using dry candied fruit like most recipes do. The beauty of this process is that by making your own starter, you end up with more liquid than you need for the cake, and it’s tradition to jar up the excess and pass it along to a friend with the cake recipe, hence “friendship” being in the name. The friendship fruit cake becomes a sort of chain letter, with more and more people passing along the recipe the more they actually make it, and since the starter needs to be used or frozen within a few days, whoever receives one really has no excuse to not use it.
To make the starter, you combine apricots, peaches, maraschino cherries, and pineapple with brandy and sugar in a large jar or bowl. You stir the mixture a couple of times a week, and by day 20, your concoction is ready. You’ll drain the fruit, saving the red liquid (that’s your starter), and you can either serve the fruit over ice cream or pound cake. The liquid you’ve saved will then be used to candy the fruit you’re going to use in the cake, a process which requires mixing in additional fruit and sugar over 30 days. After preparing the fruit for your cake, you’ll again drain the fruit, which will result in more starter than you need for another fruit cake (about 2 cups). This is when you get out the extra jars, split up what’s leftover and share it with your friends.
Want to try this recipe, and then pass it on? Here are the directions for making the starter and the cake, from AllRecipes.com.
Fruitcake is an ancient goody, with the oldest versions a sort of energy bar made by the Romans to sustain their soldiers in battle. The Roman fruitcake was a mash of barley, honey, wine and dried fruit, often pomegranate seeds.
At first, the cakes were mainly filled with nuts. When sugar became more widely available, candied preserved fruits were added. The addition of sugar made the dessert so “sinfully rich” that the church briefly banned fruitcake in the 1700s.
These cakes were often presented as centerpieces at grand holiday feasts, symbolizing abundance and prosperity. The art of making fruitcakes also became a cherished tradition passed down through generations, with families often using secret recipes and techniques to create their own signature cakes.
Part of the reason this dense, often dry cake has the reputation it does is due to that no one finds that dried fruit in the middle to be appealing. Secondly, the actual cake itself has a minimal flavor and required at least one cup of tea - if not several - in order to get through just a few bites.
We might like to pretend, based on its name, that fruitcake is a reasonably healthy sweet option, however this is not the case. Fruitcake tends to have high butter, sugar and syrup content, making it high in both fat and calorie content. The same goes for Panettone- the Italian bread that has become a holiday favorite.
Jenkins, a low-level employee at the city's famed fruitcake company, the Collin Street Bakery, embezzled $17 million from 2004 to 2013, spending the money on cars, trips, watches, and jewelry—all so that he could keep up appearances with the upper crust of his town of 24,000.
of children was 12 the cake was equally distributed to them and each piece was of 50 g. (Weight of one cake piece X No. of students)=(50 g X 12)= 600 g. 600 g divided by 15 = 40 gms.
Toss the fruit in a little flour before adding it to the batter. Use 2-3 tablespoons to coat the fruit thoroughly, then gently fold it into the cake batter right before you pour it into the pan or patty pans.
"Low water activity is important because many microorganisms, including foodborne illness-causing bacteria, need moisture in order to reproduce. "In practical terms, this makes most fruitcakes extremely shelf stable, so they would be safe to eat for a long time – a really long time," Chapman says.
What alcohol should you use? Strong, flavourful spirits with a high ABV are ideal for feeding fruitcakes. You can use rum, brandy or whisky for spice, or if you like citrus flavours, try an orange liqueur. Cherry brandy and amaretto will also work well if you prefer these.
The story is about a young lady, Anna, who works as a chemist in Amos Cosmetics factory in New Jersey. She tries different concoctions to create the best perfume. One day, she accidentally discovers a perfume that can charm men and make them fall in love with her.
Its origins go as far back as the Middle Ages, when dried fruits became more widely available. The cost of ingredients was so high that in the 17th and 18th-century fruitcakes were only made for special occasions, such as weddings and holidays, particularly in Victorian England.
A Victorian superstition states that placing a piece of fruit cake under one's pillow will cause a dream of their future spouse. If food is being served at tea-time, the person to take the last piece of cake from the plate will be the first to get married.
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