Making A Fruitcake Back to Fruitcakes Menu   Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients; fruitcake is supposed to have a lot of good stuff in it. If most of the preparation is done in advance, a good fruitcake can be put together in less than an hour and fondly remembered long after the last crumbs have disappeared. When making fruitcakes, add up the total amount of fruit and nuts called for in the recipe, and then make changes according to your personalpreferences. Try dried apples, apricots, pears, peaches, pineapple, prunes,dates, black and golden raisins, and currants. Not creative enough? Add driedmango or papaya, or dried cherries, cranberries, or blueberries.Choose the fruits that you like, use what you have on hand, or what's most cost effective for your budget. If there are certain fruits you don't like, you can always include more or less of another kind. The ratio of fruit to batter has always been an issue for fruitcake connoisseurs. At least half the weight of the cake should be fruit, and the more fruit the better. A fruitcake with less than a 50:50 ratio, is called a Plum Cake or Dundee Cake. The dried fruits should be cut in to small pieces with kitchen shears or chopped with a knife. The chopped fruits are then soaked in fine spirits such as a good a port, sherry, Marsala, Madeira, Malmsey, Muscat, rum or brandy for 24 hours before making the cake. Don't scrimp the alcohol, use a good-quality liqueur for best results. The heat of cooking will destroy most of the alcohol while leaving the flavor.   If you do use candied fruit, rinse it first to get rid of most of the syrupy, sticky glaze. While dried fruit absorbs alcohol, candied peel does not readily soak up the liqueur so its probably better to plan on eating this type of fruitcake fresh, rather than aged and cured. There are dark fruitcakes and light fruitcakes, and some people prefer one better than they prefer the other. A dark fruitcake uses light colored fruits such as currants, dried apricots and pineapple, lighter colored spices and light corn syrup. A dark fruitcake uses darker fruits like raisins, dried dates, cranberries, and prunes, darker colored spices, and dark corn syrup or molasses. Ingredients In Fruitcakes By tradition, when labor day rolled around everyone in my family knew it was time to start making fruitcakes so the first one would be ready to cut on Thanksgiving Day. There are dark fruitcakes and light fruitcakes, and some people prefer one better than the other. A light or white fruitcake uses light colored fruits such as currants, dried apricots and pineapple and light corn syrup. A dark fruitcake uses darker fruits like raisins, dates, cranberries, and prunes, and dark corn syrup or molasses. The ratio of fruit to batter has always been an issue for serious fruitcake connoisseurs, but the general rule is at least half the weight of the cake should be fruit. A fruitcake with less than a 50:50 ratio is not really a fruitcake, but a Plum Cake or Dundee Cake. A good fruitcake is the result of the best quality ingredients and most recipes are fairly tolerant of substitutions- so use the fruits you like best. The Fruit If you want a dense, fruit-rich cake, you'll need good quality dried fruits. Select from dried apples, pears, pineapple, pears, dates, peaches, prunes, cranberries, blueberries, cherries, figs, apricots, black and golden raisins and currants. You can also use dried mango, banana, coconut and papaya bits, and a little freshly grated lemon or orange peel is a nice thing to add. Dust the fruit with a bit of flour as you start cutting them into pieces to keep them from sticking to your knife blade. Use a sharp knife or kitchen shears rather than a food processor that will chop the fruit too small.   To make recipe substitutions and use the fruits that you like, add up the total amount of fruits and nuts called for in the recipe, and then make changes according to your personal preferences. The important thing is that the total amount of the fruit and nuts should still be approximately the same as in the original recipe. When you have assembled all the dried fruits cut them into small pieces with kitchen shears or chop them with a knife. Marinating The Fruit This step in the preparation should be scheduled at least 48 hours and better still at 72 hours, prior to the time you want to cook the fruitcake to allow the fruits time to marinate. Before cooking, the chopped fruits need to be soaked in fine wine to soften and preserve the fruit. Soaking removes the crystalline sugar from the surface of the fruit and allows the pieces to absorb more of the liqueur, keeping the pieces moister. Without soaking the dried fruits will continue to dry out and draw moisture from the surrounding cake, leaving you with a dry and crumbling fruitcake suitable only for the trash bin. Don't scrimp on the wine; use a good-quality brand that is eminently drinkable. Good choices are port, sherry, Marsala, Madeira, Malmsey, or Muscat. Choose lighter colored wines for light colored fruitcakes, and the deeper colored wines for dark fruitcakes. Even though heat will destroy most of the alcohol, the rich flavors will remain in the fruits. Place all the dried fruits in a nonreactive glass or ceramic bowl, and pour in enough wine to cover the pieces completely. Make up a spice bag with 2 sticks of cinnamon, 10 whole cloves, 10 whole black pepper corns and a 3 inch strip of orange pee and push that beneath the surface. Cover the bowl tightly and set aside, allowing at least two or three days, up to a week for the fruit to absorb the wine. Replenish the wine if needed. The Spices Remember, this is a fruitcake, not a spice cake, so do not go overboard on the spices. Use fresh whole spices whenever possible, grind them in a coffee mill or spice grinder just before adding them to the recipe. This releases volatile oils and flavors that are long gone in commercial ground spices. Because fresh-ground spices are so pungent you may want to decrease the amounts. If using ground spices, buy them fresh, don't use that can of cinnamon that's been in the back of your cupboard for a decade. The Nuts Many recipes for fruitcakes call for nuts, but 'if fruitcakes were meant to have nuts', so an old wives tale goes, 'then they would be called Fruit AND Nut Cakes'. Anyway, if you're not a purist and want to include nuts in your fruitcake, go right ahead . Walnuts and pecans are the most popular choices, although English walnuts, almonds, filberts, and hazelnuts are other good choices. However, plan on slicing and freezing your nutty fruitcake if you have to store the leftovers. A fruitcake made with nuts may keep for a month or two, depending on heat and humidity, but the oils in nutmeats will become rancid over time. That bad taste and smell will make your fruitcake inedible, so for long term storage and aging with spirits, limit the use of nuts to a decoration on the top of the fruitcake and then remove them before wrapping the cake. Use only the freshest nuts and chop the nutmeats by hand, not in a food processor. You don't want to cut them too small or you won't find that crunch amid all the pieces of fruit when your cake is finished. The nuts mainly add texture and crunch, but their subtle flavor is lost with so many other ingredients and spices. The Fat Or Suet Suet adds richness to fruitcake recipes and holiday puddings. Unlike other fat, suet is hard and granular and comes from the solid white fat found around the kidneys and loins of beef and sheep. If you live in England, beef or vegetable suet is easy to find, but in America, the best approach is to ask a butcher to save a pound or two for you and then grind it into small pieces yourself with a grater, food grinder or food processor. To substitute butter, freeze the required amount, then quickly chop or grate it into small bits and freeze it again. Keep frozen until it's time to add it to the batter. The Batter A fruitcake is mostly fruit with just enough batter to hold the mixture of fruits, nuts and spices together. You will need a very large bowl, or do like my grandma taught me, and use a big soup pot so you (or a helper) can hold onto the pot handles while stirring the batter. Drain the marinated fruit, remove the spice bag and reserve the liquid for the recipe. Toss the fruit with a bit of flour just before adding them to the batter; this will keep them from sticking together. The batter will be heavy, so plan on using a large and sturdy wooden spoon so the pieces of fruit won't get pulverized in a mixer. Glazing And Decorating After cooking, the tops of fruitcakes can be glazed and decorated with a fanciful pattern of colorful fruits and nuts if desired. Before the fruitcake is glazed, plan the decorative pattern in advance. Select the fruits, and this is a good time to use glace, candied fruits, and nuts and layout the pattern on a sheet of paper first. The fruitcake must be cooled completely before applying the glaze. Using a small saucepan, heat 1 cup of corn syrup (use dark or light corn syrup according to the fruitcake recipe you have used) to boiling, and then carefully brush the top of a cooled fruitcake with the hot corn syrup. Now, using the pieces of fruit and nuts, layout your pattern on the top of the fruitcake and they will stick to the hot corn syrup. When the pattern is complete, brush with second glaze of the hot corn syrup. Allow the glaze to dry before wrapping.