Fruitcake

[barnesy]

I may want to make a fruitcake for christmas. Anyone out there have a good, "traditional" recipe or know where I can find one?

Barnesy

[hotwine]

They're a whole lot of work, Barnesy. Suggest you think about getting one by mail order. I can get a company name/phone number for you.

[cpurvis]

Our recipe: if it's fruitcake, then drown it in bourbon. Tastes good after a couple of weeks, better after a few months, & (if you keep your paws off) lasts like Madeira...darned near forever.

I'll see if I can find the family recipe for you...the real stuff...most store-bought is WAY too dry & candy-like.

cp

[winoweenie]

Collins Street Bakery in Texas makes a fruitcake that you couldn't replicate in the next 50 years. Save wear and tear and go to their web-site. WW

[zenda2]

X-post with WW.

http://www.collinstreetbakery.com/

[This message has been edited by zenda2 (edited 11-09-2001).]

[mrdutton]

So now I have to make an assumption here based on above remarks.

If I were to buy a fruit cake from Collins Street bakery and then drown the sucker in bourbon (even though I prefer Jack Daniels), then after a few years I might have something that is truely edible? Is that the way I read all of the above?

Might I even suggest that maybe the fruit cake, after its soaking period, might also be served with a small side of hard sauce. Think that would work?

What about the fruit cake that has been in my fridge in the garage for the past 13 years? Think it might be time to soak it with bourbon and give it a taste? Or, maybe, should I just toss it?

Oh, by the way. I do like fruit cake once in a generation or two. In the meantime, I really, really like oven baked brown bread. I think that is much better than fruit cake.

[winoweenie]

I too can find one or 37 things I prefer to fruit-cake, but must admit that after sending the Collins cake to all of my distributors for the last 20 years they are the one thing I always get positive comments on. And when soaked they really turn up the burners. WW

[mrdutton]

Well I lernt from the xperts - right from the website itself comes the following advice for "Doctoring" a fruit cake:

"How do you "Doctor" the DeLuxe Fruitcake?

We recommend a good Cognac, Brandy, Red Wine or Port be used. Simply soak a clean white cheese cloth in the spirit of your choice then remove the cello wrap from your DeLuxe and place the cloth completely around the cake. Make sure to fill the center hole with part of the well soaked cloth.

Place the "Doctored" DeLuxe back in the tin and refrigerate. After about 5 days remove and re-soak the cheese cloth with special interest on the part in center of cake.

Repeat every 5 days keep tasting until it's just right.

Happy Sampling!"

Sounds about right to me! Guess I oughta order one of them suckers and get me a bottle of Jim or Jack and start soakin......

[zenda2]

There are 2 purveyors of cake available over the web that I'll vouch for.

Collins Street Bakery Fruit Cake (year round)

Haydel's Bakery King Cake (Mardi Gras)

It ain't just beer in this beer belly 8^)

Barnsey, just in case you still want recipes for fruitcake, you'll find plenty of 'em here:

http://www.recipesource.com/

[This message has been edited by zenda2 (edited 11-11-2001).]

[hotwine]

When I was a kid, we used to receive fruitcakes from relatives at Christmas each year, and the danged things would be around for months, like huge paperweights. I couldn't stand 'em then, and can't now. This sure sounds like a waste of good whiskey to me....

[zenda2]

Johnny Carson always used to claim that there were only half-a-dozen fruit cakes at any one time, and that we all just exchange the same ones over and over. Sounds like y'all might fit in that category, Hotwine.

I realize that half the population thinks fruitcake isn't fit for human consumption, so for the other half...IMHO Collins Street Bakery makes a heckuva good fruitcake. One worthy of some decent rum or bourbon.

[hotwine]

I had forgotten about Johnny's analysis. My dad would have agreed with him. I remember him asking grandma one Christmas, "Mom, have you had this thing in the basement since LAST Christmas?" To which she replied, "Of course not, son, it only looks that way." Har! I'll bet she had, too, since we wouldn't eat it.

Pass the whiskey (and hold the water).

[mrdutton]

Now there is an area where we can agree, Hotwine.

Whiskey and water are anathema to me; with the slight exception that an ice cube or two maybe allowed contact for a short period of time.

What I really can't understand is how, on God's green earth, can some people actually mix good whiskey and coke together and call that a worthy drink..........!!! That is beyond me for sure.

This is one stance from which I will not flinch.

Should even a guest in my home ever ask for GOOD whiskey and coke, I just gently request that they fix it themselves.

I tell them I am unsure of how the proportions should be and that I'd feel a lot more comfortable, therefore, if they would just mix their own "drink".

[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 11-19-2001).]

[cpurvis]

Well, I'm partial to the family recipe...our's that is. Doubt many would recognize our almost black-colored version as "fruitcake"...those who try it decide the once-in-a-generation taste well spent.

So I sympathize with the half of the populace who abhore the stuff passed around as 'gifts'...I wouldn't even waste time tryin' to "doctor" 99% of what I've seen called "fruitcake."

As for the de-structions to "Simply soak a clean white cheese cloth in the spirit of your choice...":

HOGWASH!! That'd never make it through the surface of ours. When I say soak, I mean soak! An' don't waste good liquor...Beam's Choice would be almost too far up the quality ladder.

Never tried hard sauce, but it might jus' work.

cp

[zenda2]

I knew a fellow who drank Crown Royal and coke all the time, and who had the nerve to suggest the one of his friends ordering a whiskey sour was 'drinking a lady drink'. I pointed out the error of his hypothesis.

"When I drink water, I drink water. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey" Barry Fitzgerald/'The Quiet Man'

[barnesy]

Hmmm, I may just skip the hassle and the expense and get me a 20 year old Tawny port for Christmas instead...

Barnesy

[winoweenie]

AND A COLLINS ST BAKERY FLUITCAKKLES AFFER'AL THIS HASSLE !!!!! WW

[hotwine]

Mike, it pays to have a bottle of Eau de Swamp handy for folks who ask for bourbon and coke (or even worse, Jack Daniels and coke. Shudder!) I give 'em some kind of horse sweat, or even rum, with their coke, and they don't know the difference. Save the real whiskey for folks who can appreciate it, and who don't ask to water it.

[winoweenie]

I do the same wif' my single malts. Have a bottle of Highland Park 12 and another that has been ressurected using Scoresbys. WW

[hotwine]

Hehe. Same here, only it's the Glenlivet that I keep outta sight.