{"id":11657,"date":"2016-12-01T11:34:31","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T16:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/?p=11657"},"modified":"2016-12-01T11:34:31","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T16:34:31","slug":"fruitcake-for-those-who-dont-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/?p=11657","title":{"rendered":"Fruitcake for Those Who Don’t Like It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tinky-and-jan-laughweb\"<\/p>\n

Earlier this week my sister-in-law Leigh and I made fruitcake. We weren\u2019t precisely enjoying the fruitcake weather of Truman Capote\u2019s \u201cA Christmas Memory.\u201d (I wrote at length about that story when I shared the recipe for my late mother\u2019s signature fruitcake<\/a>.) The air was warm and humid rather than cool and crisp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, we wanted to get a head start on our holiday baking. Fruitcake requires advance preparation so if one wants to have it for Christmas one should start working on it in late November.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course we made my mother\u2019s fruitcake\u2014and talked about her. The image at the top of this blog (and the top of this post) shows Taffy and me several years back working on fruitcake. She loved the annual tradition of preparing it, and continuing that tradition lets Leigh and me honor her and remember her in a fun, constructive way.<\/span><\/p>\n

We also made the fruitcake recipe below. This wasn\u2019t Taffy’s favorite fruitcake, but it is most definitely mine. Long ago Taffy copied it from a newspaper. It was originally NOT aged with additional Grand Marnier; that was our family\u2019s addition. The cake can be eaten right after baking, but like many of us it gets better with age and booze.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is fruitcake for non-fruitcake lovers. It has no sticky weird fruits, just golden raisins and pecans. And it emerges from the oven with a lovely golden color. The cake is VERY rich, as you\u2019ll see in the recipe. Our family calls it \u201cDelicious Death\u201d in tribute to a cake made in Agatha Christie\u2019s novel A Murder Is Announced<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this mystery, set shortly after World War II, Delicious Death is a household favorite, prepared by the strange but talented cook who works at the scene of the first murder. Its abundance of butter and eggs are particularly welcome after the rationing the English have endured during and after the war.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you find this cake too big and too rich, break it up. As you can see from the picture below (taken while the cakes were cooling), Leigh and I made half a recipe. This yielded four small cakes and one small loaf\u2014perfect for gift giving. They took about 1-3\/4 hours to bake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Happy holiday baking from our home to yours!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"cooling-cakeseb\"<\/p>\n

Delicious Death<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

1 pound golden raisins
\n1 pound pecans, chopped
\n3 cups sifted flour
\n1 teaspoon salt
\n1 pound butter (4 sticks) at room temperature
\n2 cups sugar
\n6 eggs, separated
\n1 teaspoon baking soda
\n1 tablespoon warm water
\n1\/4 cup Grand Marnier or Cointreau, plus additional liqueur as needed<\/span><\/p>\n

Instructions:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Butter and flour the inside of a 10-inch, 12-cup tube pan or bundt pan (or butter and flour a number of smaller pans, and adjust your cooking time accordingly).<\/span><\/p>\n

In a large bowl, combine the raisins and the pecans. Sprinkle the flour and salt over them, and toss the mixture with your hands until blended. Set aside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Gradually beat in the sugar. Cream the mixture well; then add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating constantly. Blend the baking soda and the warm water, and beat them into the batter. Beat in the Grand Marnier. Pour this batter over the nut mixture, and blend it in with your hands (which will smell WONDERFUL from the Grand Marnier!).<\/span><\/p>\n

After thoroughly washing your beater and bowl, beat the egg whites until they are stiff, and fold them into the rest of the batter with your hands. Continue folding until you can no longer see the whites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spoon and scrape the mixture into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a spatula. Bake for 2 to 2-1\/4 hours, or until the cake is puffed above the pan and nicely browned on top. (If the cake starts to brown on top too soon, cover it with aluminum foil.) Remove the cake from the pan after about 15 minutes. Tapping the bottom of the cake pan with a heavy knife will help loosen it.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the cake has cooled, wrap it in cheesecloth, and sprinkle Grand Marnier on it to moisten it. Wrap it in foil, place it in a plastic storage bag, and hide it until you wish to use it\u2014ideally for about 10 days. (It will keep longer, but you may have to re-douse it and refrigerate it after a month or so.) Makes 1 10-inch cake.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"murder1web\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week my sister-in-law Leigh and I made fruitcake. We weren\u2019t precisely enjoying the fruitcake weather of Truman Capote\u2019s \u201cA Christmas Memory.\u201d (I wrote at length about that story when I shared the recipe for my late mother\u2019s signature fruitcake.) The air was warm and humid rather than cool and crisp. Nevertheless, we wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[1838,125,185,1836,1837],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11657"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11671,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11657\/revisions\/11671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}