Christmas Cake

Okay, truth be told, it's a fruitcake. I thought if I titled it as such no one would read this post. I am among the bold few who not only enjoy, but make this much maligned Christmas-time delicacy. Though I do not make them every year, due to the amount of time they take to make, when I do make them, I make enough to pass on to family and a few friends. And, contrary to the bad publicity fruitcakes bear, my recipe is a good one. No, really, my fruitcakes are delicious! So good, I believe this recipe could quite favorably change ones opinion of fruticakes forever.

What makes my cakes different from all the rest is the absence of citron and candied peel, the ingredients responsible for much of the cake's tarnished reputation. In its place, is a wonderful mixture of nuts and dried fruits, chief among them dried apricots, dates, and golden raisins. The only candied fruit in the recipe, and not in the original recipe, is red and green cherries, which I add for color, not taste. All nestled in a wonderful cake batter that includes a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, traditional holiday spices and a blend of liquors, that contribute to the cakes rich taste and moist texture. 

I started making fruitcakes as a young bride following in the footsteps of my mother, who would make a dozen or more cakes each holiday to give away to relatives and business associates. I started with Mom's recipe, which was of the traditional variety with lots of citron and candied fruits. They were good, but unfortunately, not great, and often dry and crumbly - sorry Mom. I tried a couple of other recipes, before settling on this one, but with terrible results. One recipe called for soaking cheesecloth wrapped cakes in whiskey. After a few days, to my horror, they began to grow mold.  Needless to say, that recipe got tossed, immediately, into the trash.

The recipe that followed, and the one I use today, came to me by way of the food section of my local newspaper, The Detroit News. That was roughly 35 years ago. I have changed it a bit to suit my taste, adding the candied cherries plus other dried fruits, and replacing the prescribed pecans for walnuts, due to my mother's allergy to pecans. I also replaced the Curacao liquor called for in the recipe with Cream de Cocoa, which at the time, I thought were the same. Not the case, of course. I eventually tried the original recipe using the Curacao, but believe the cakes with the Cream de Cocoa were decidedly richer in taste and remains the liquor of choice.

When making this recipe for the first time, I gave a cake to a good friend of mine, who told me she and her husband loved it so much they devoured it in a single sitting - mind you, they were small cakes. Other favorable comments followed and, as they say, the rest is history. The recipe has stood the test of time and continues to be one of the best tasting fruitcakes around - honest!

The cakes take time and patience to make, but are well worth the effort. They are wonderfully moist and quite dense that can be cut into thin slices easily without crumbling. A thin slice with a good cup of coffee or a glass of champagne is well worth waiting for each year.

Always looking to enhance this recipe, this time I have added some dried pineapple, strawberries and mangoes to the fruit mixture. I continue to use walnuts in place of the pecans, but any variety or combinations of nuts will do. 

Christmas Fruitcake

Fruit & Nuts:

1 cup chopped red and/or green candied cherries

1 lb. dried apricots, coarsely chopped

1 lb. dates, coarsely chopped

1 lb. golden raisins

8 oz.dried strawberries

8 oz. dried pineapple

8 oz. dried mango

1 lb. walnuts, roughly chopped

1 lb. blanched & toasted almonds, roughly chopped

Cake:
1 lb. sweet butter, softened
12 eggs, room temperature
3 c. dark or light brown sugar
4 c. flour, divided
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. mace
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cloves
4 T. each dark rum, brandy, Cream de Cacao
Juice and rind of 2 oranges & 2 lemons

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Generously butter, line (with parchment or waxed paper) and then re-butter pans of choice: either 2 12-cup tube pans, 2 9- or 10-inch springform pans, 3 standard loaf pans, 5-7 small loaf pans or do what I did-purchase professional paper bakeware that didn't need to be buttered --yeah!

Place all chopped fruits and nuts into a very large mixing bowl or pan.  Add 1 cup of the flour and toss well to fully coat. Set aside.

Make the cake batter:

 

Sift together the remaining flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, mace and cloves in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar till fluffy either with a hand mixer in a very large mixing bowl or with a Kitchen Aid mixer. 

Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Transfer this mixture to a very large mixing bowl. 

Mix together the rum, Cream de Cacao, brandy, zest and juice of the oranges  and lemons.

To the creamed butter/sugar mixture add the flour/spices and liquid mixture, alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrap bowl occasionally to ensure ingredients are well combined.

Add the nut and fruit mixture to the finished batter and mix well to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake until toothpick inserted into center of cakes comes out clean. For the largest pans bake for roughly 2 - 2 1/2 hours. The smallest pans as little as 1 hour.

Let the cakes cool on a cooling rack. Remove from pans (not paper bakeware) and wrap with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. Keep in a cool, dry place. Let rest for a day or two before cutting.

Boston Cream Pie

My husband is a big fan of Boston Cream Pie, so, for his birthday the other day, I made him one. It was my first attempt at making this type of cake, and for the most part, it was wonderful!  Not so much in looks - next cake will be better - but, the overall taste was great. All three parts - cake, pastry cream middle and chocolate glaze on top - were oh so yummy.

I used a combination of recipes to make the cake. For the cake portion, I made a basic butter cake recipe from Betty Crocker. Instead of putting the batter into 2, 9-inch cake pans I used a 9-in springform pan and split the baked & cooled cake in two. Though quite tasty, texture was not quite right. I either beat the butter on too high a speed or after adding flour and milk alternately, I mixed the batter too much - next cake will be better.

The pastry cream recipe was part Martha Stewart for ingredients and amounts, part Betty Crocker for preparation technique.  I have made pastry cream many times before. Most recipes require a complicated process of steeping the milk with a vanilla bean, then tempering the eggs, etc., etc. But, it doesn't need to be that complicated. The truth is, I didn't have a vanilla bean to steep. My process is simple: mix the dry ingredients together, mix the eggs and milk together, then join the two mixtures in a heavy pan and cook till the mixture comes to a boil. Take off the heat, add the butter and vanilla and voila - pastry cream. So simple. The only 'professional' step I adhere to is to strain the cream to remove any lumps or bits of egg membrane. This makes the cream perfectly smooth. Especially important for cream pies.

And finally, for the glaze, I used a recipe I found online from Country Living Magazine. Basically, its a ganache, but with the addition of a little butter and corn syrup.  I have made simple ganache before and found it too thick. The butter and corn syrup seems to have made it a bit smoother and silkier. 

The trickiest part was the final assembly.  You want the cream to peek out between the cake layers just enough and in an even amount to look right - next cake will be better. As for the glaze, first it has to be perfectly smooth, no lumps of chocolate or butter, and you have to work fast while the glaze is still quite hot for the best coating. Also, be very careful while pouring the glaze over the top to ensure not too much pours off the sides and that the drips are fairly even - next cake will be better.

Would definitely make again mindful of these above mentioned refinements,  so that the next cake will indeed be better.

Boston Cream Pie

Cake:

2 cups sifted cake flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 large eggs

3/4 c. milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare 9-inch springform pan by greasing bottom and sides. Line bottom with parchment cut to fit and grease parchment. 

In medium-size bowl, sift flour (again), with salt and baking powder.  Set aside.

In bowl of electric mixer, cream together butter, sugar and vanilla on low speed until light and fluffy (several minutes). 

Add eggs, one at a time, incorporating well each time and scraping bowl to ensure well mixed.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three batches alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Do not over beat with each addition. Remove paddle (or mixers) and using a plastic spatula, scrape sides and bottom of bowl and turn batter one or two more times to ensure batter is well mixed.

Add batter to prepared pan and bake for approximately 40 minutes.  Let cool completely. 

Pastry cream filling:

5 egg yolks

1/3 c. sugar

1/3 c. cornstarch

pinch of salt

2 c. milk

2 tsp. vanilla

 

 

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, mix together the sugar, cornstarch and salt. 

In a medium-size bowl beat egg yolks. Add the milk and mix together. Add milk/eggs to saucepan. 

Stir to mix together and cook over medium-high heat until the mixture comes to a full boil. Boil for 1 minute.  

Remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla. 

Stir and then strain into a heat-proof bowl to cool. 

Cover mixture with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic against the surface of the cream to prevent a skin from forming. Chill at least 2 hours.

Chocolate glaze:

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

1/2 c. heavy cream

1 T. unsalted butter

3 T. corn syrup

Heat cream to a boil. 

Pour into a medium-size bowl filled with the chopped chocolate, butter and corn syrup. 

Let set for 1 minute and then stir until smooth and silky.  Use immediately to coat top of cake.

Assembly:

Split cake in half. Set top half aside. 

Carefully spoon pastry cream, evenly, on cut side of bottom half to approximately 1/2 inch from cake edge.  

Place top half of cake on cream and lightly press to push cream just to edge of cake layers. 

 

Pour hot chocolate glaze over cake top, starting from the center of the cake.  Gently, move the glaze ever so slightly over the edges of the cake so drips fall evenly and not all the way to the bottom of the cake.

 

Chocolate Amaretti Cake

It rained cats and dogs all weekend at the lake. Add windy conditions and a considerable drop in the outside temperature, it seemed more like fall than summer. Stranded inside for the weekend it was a perfect time to bake. I had purchased some amaretti cookies a few weeks back for a Chocolate Amaretti Cake recipe I had intended to make for a family party which we cancelled due to a family emergency. With all the necessary ingredients waiting to become something it seemed the right time to finally tackle the recipe. It comes from Giada De Laurentiis’ Everyday Italian cookbook. It was the first time making the recipe. Based on the results I would make it again, however, with a few minor adjustments.

This is essentially a chocolate flavored flourless cake.  Ground almonds and crushed amaretti cookies replace the flour and provide the structure for the cake. I am a big fan of almond flavored anything and selected this recipe expecting the nuts and cookies to deliver that rich almondy taste I like so much in pastries and desserts. No so.  Chocolate is the predominant flavor though it is subtle rather than rich (using dark or bittersweet chips instead of the prescribed semi-sweet would likely enrich the flavor). 

Less dense than most flourless cakes, it is quite moist and slightly fudgy, with the nuts and cookies providing texture and a satisfying slightly crunchy bite. The recipe calls for the zest of 1 orange which overpowers the flavor of the cake on the first cut, but seems to dissipate and becomes almost undetectable the next day.  All in all, in spite of the fact that the almond taste I craved was not there, (I would add a teaspoon of almond extract next time) the cake is quite delicious and a great choice for a dinner party dessert. Not too sweet or rich, and simply wonderful with a good cup of coffee.

Chocolate Amaretti Cake

3/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup slivered almonds

1 cup (about 2 oz. amaretti cookies)

1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temp.

2/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. grated orange zest (1 orange)

4 large eggs

2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 T. sliced almonds 

 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 inch springform pan with nonstick spray. Spread the 2 T. sliced almonds over the bottom of the pan and refrigerate.

In a small bowl, microwave the chocolate chips, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a food processor (I used a mixer instead), combine the almonds (I used sliced almonds instead slivered) and cookies, and pulse until finely ground.  Transfer to a bowl.  Add the butter, sugar and orange zest and blend until creamy and smooth.  With the machine running add the eggs, one at a time. Add the nut mixture and the melted chocolate. Pulse until blended. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  Bake until the center puffs and tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 35-45 minutes.  Cool the cake in the pan for 15 minutes. Transfer to a platter, and sift the 2 T. cocoa powder over the top and serve.

 

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