Homemade Dark Fruitcake, Aged Three Years: An Observation or Two
Over the years I have baked a lot of fruitcake. I have also aged a lot of it after using all sorts of combinations of liquor for varying periods of time.
Last night, celebrating a birthday, my wife and I opened a dark fruitcake we had aged three years. It was "seasoned" with Gentleman Jack bourbon, certainly much more than we needed-about a fifth-but that is what we were going for.
It is the best fruitcake I have ever tasted. But for anyone on this board who is into aging cakes the taste and texture were no different from a one year old cake and that taste is not significantly different from a six month old cake. Over time we have also tried varying amounts of liquor ranging from a total of a pint to what we now use, an "extreme amount" of a fifth. The cakes are initially wrapped in cheesecloth soaked in about a pint of the liquor, wrapped in foil, placed in a metal cake box, wrapped in foil again and then refrigerated. After two weeks we turn the cake box upsidedown for a couple of days and then turn it right side up again. After one month we unwrap everything and drizzle more Gentleman Jack. We repeat this a third time after two months and a fourth time after four months. Beyond these no more liquor is added except that the cake box is turned upside down for a short period from time to time.
Various combinations of liquor have included Wild Turkey, Meyer's Dark Rum, Bacardi (different labels), different kinds of brandy, even Grand Marnier. We have probably tried about 25 to 30 different kinds of liquor and/or combinations over time. All of the aging is in a refrigerator, wrapped as I described above.
I have also found that a commercially made cake from the Monks of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky is probably 90% as good as what I can bake from scratch when the cake is aged for six months or more.
Has anyone else had experiences with long aged dark fruitcake?
Joe H.
Jan 04, 2003 06:40PM
YES!!!! My mother aged them 5 years........pretty much the same as you , except pouring more booze on them about every 6 months. She turned the cans about every 2 or three months. Besides the normal commercial booze , in the fall they would take cidar jugs out to the country side and buy "moon shine" from the farmers and dump that on also. I remember thinking if anyone lit a match when she opened the can the house would blow up. It was wonderful , very dark and moist. After she died , I found a can of abt 4 in the attic which had to be 10-15 years old. I started soaking it and abt 6 months later it was wonderful. We never put in refridge as it drys out. Somewhere some place I think I have an old recipe.
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I don't understanding. If "... the taste and texture were no different from a one year old cake ..." what's the point? Why not eat the one year old cake and drink the bourbon?
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At last I have met the other person in NoVA who likes fruitcake. I made a lot more fruitcake in 2001 than I was able to unload, so I have three leftover that I kept dousing with cognac every so often over the past year or so. I opened one up at our holiday party and it was excellent--even sworn fruitcake haters had to admit that it was at least passable. I don't think, however, that it that much better than it was in 2001, at least not by enough to warrant intentionally keeping a cake around for 18 months.
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If you're near Reston on Sunday give me a call-I still have half of the five pound cake left. In fact I have everything to make some more risotto also.
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I know it is a lot to ask, but could you post the recipe, or point me to a good one? My husband loves dark fruitcake. 20 years ago we made some from a recipe that I think was called "Grandma Baxter's Fruitcake". It was published in the Boston Globe. The recipe is long gone but we still try to duplicate it. We feel like we're the only ones in Mass. who love dark booze soaked old fruitcake! I usually do one in bourbon and one in rum. The longest we've ever managed to make them last is 6 months though. We eat them! Guess we should make more. We also make panforte. A great excuse for winter.
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Go to Saveur.com and search their recipe file for "Classic Fruitcake". It's just what you're looking for.
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"We feel like we're the only ones in Mass. who love dark booze soaked old fruitcake!"
Just wanted to say you're not alone! I love boozy fruitcake too. May be the residual influence from the Brits (we were a former British colony). However, I prefer more cake than is usual in most fruitcakes (the American fruitcakes I've tried are too heavy on the fruit), so I make my own using a really simple recipe.
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Hi Joe H.:
I'm very interested in your recipe and any other instructions you can include in it, from your experience (something like "don't put in a certain kind of candied fruit as it will not age well), etc. If you're willing to share, and your recipe is not proprietary :), please post it, or email to me. I'd be very grateful.
Is "Gentleman Jack" a premium kind of Jack Daniels? Is this whisky significantly more yummy as a soaker than cognac?
Great to have a another fruitcake baker on the board!
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I apologize because I don't know how to scan this into my computer so I'll type this long hand. It's several pages so I apologize in advance for typos. This is for "Black Fruitcake" and it is from the 1964 edition of the American Heritage cookbook. It has been changed a bit to accommodate personal taste.
1/2 lb candied citron
1/4 lb candied orange peel
1/4 lb candied lemon peel
3/4 lb candied cherries
l lb candied pineapple
1 lb golden raisons
1/4 lb currants
5/8 cup Myer's rum
1/4 lb blanched shelled almonds
1/4 lb shelled walnuts
1/4 lb pecans
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 tsp mace
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
5 eggs
1 tblsp. milk
1 tsp almond extract
The fruit and nuts should be prepared a day ahead as follows: sliver the citron, lemon and orange peel into very thin strips; cut the cherries in half and the pineapple in thin wedges. Set aside. Pick over the raisons and currants to eliminate stray stems or seeds, add rum (or cognac, Sherry, Madeira, etc.), and soak overnite. Chop the almonds and the walnuts or pecans coarsely. Set them aside, too. The following day prepare the pan. Grease a 10 inch tube pan, four 1 pound coffee cans or 2 bread pans, measuring 9 x 5 x 3 inches. Line with brown paper.
To make the cake: Mix 1/2 cup of the sifted flour with all the fruits and nuts in a large bowl. Sift remaining flour with spices and baking soda. Cream butter until soft, then work in granulated sugar and brown sugar, a little at a time, until mixture is smooth. Stir in the fruit and nuts and work together, with your hands, until batter is very well mixed. Lift the batter into the pan or pans and press it down firmly to make a compact cake when cooked. Bake in a preheated 275 degree oven. A tube pan that uses all the batter will take 3 1/4 hours; the bread pans which will each hold half the batter 2 1/4 hours; the coffee cans, which each hold one fourth of the batter, 2 hours. Remove cakes from the oven, let stand half an hour, then turn out onto cake racks. Peel off the brown paper very carefully. Let cool overnight before aging.
Aging fruitcakes: This is for a 5 pound cake; it should be adjusted depending on the SIZE of the cake/s you have baked. In a bowl place 1 pint of rum, cognac, sherry or Madeira (I use Gentleman Jack which is the smoothest of all the Jack Daniels bourbons; when I use it to age the cake I ALSO use it to soak the fruit in.); soak cheesecloth in this and then wrap the cake completely in the cheesecloth. Place the cheesecloth wrapped cake in a cookie tin and cover this with two layers of aluminum foil. Then put the cover on the aluminum foil topped cookie tin. Wrap this with aluminum foil and place in refrigerator for one month. During this time, approximately three weeks into it, turn the tin upside down for a day or two and then right side up. After one month unwrap the foil from outside the tin and remove the foil from the top of the cookie tin after you've opened it; then drizzle the cheesecloth covered cake with approximately 1/2 cup of liquor, lightly patting the cake allowing the liquor to soak in (do NOT unwrap the cake-leave it IN the cheesecloth); then repeat process of wrapping and storing in refrigerator. After two months repeat this and then again after four months. You will have a total of slightly more than one fifth (!) of liquor into this 5 pound cake. Continue by refrigerating with turning the cake upside down for a day or two every month or so. I believe the peak flavor will come somewhere around the eighth to the tenth month. A former girl friend's mother (from years and year ago) would age cakes as long as ten years. But this was a tradition because she would bake cakes to celebrate a birth or a wedding and so forth. I had one of her five year old cakes and it was so good that she turned me on to this recipe and showed me how to do it.
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I have baked as much as twenty pounds of fruitcake at once again varying sizes with different combinations of liquor. The first time that I baked a fruitcake was in the early '70's and this was the recipe I used. Having said this I haven't baked a fruitcake in about ten years since the Washington Post did a fruit cake "tasting" sending away for 15 or 20 cakes from all over America. They included virtually every mail order source that was available at the time including a number of monasteries. The one they found to be the best was from the Monks of Gethsameni in Trappist, KY. (They also make GREAT bourbon fudge!) Honestly, this cake is 80%, maybe 90% as good as what I can bake. But when you age one of the Monks' cakes, after a year or so I really believe that the aged cake is just as good as what I can bake from scratch. I really can't taste the difference with two one year old cakes. For this reason every January I buy about a half dozen five pound cakes from the Monks and one helluva lot of liquor! and start aging cakes. Although it's a lot easier it's still really time consuming. Without my aging their cake is OK but it's the aging that really puts it over the top. As for stuff like Claxton, Deluxe, etc., well, I believe that's garbage and worthy of every fruitcake joke every uttered.
I've also tried frosting fruitcakes in the past but I've found that when you have a really alcoholic cake (and, yes, this WILL be REALLY alcoholic!) the frosting detracts.
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Thanks for doing all that typing, Joe H. This sounds terrific and I will have to give it a try.
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Maidda Heatter also has a great recipe in one of her original cookbooks. You should take a look at this too.
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I have made Maida Heatters dark fruitcake recipe - soaked with brandy and orange liqueur - several times and it is indeed excellent. I believe its in the first book - great desserts.
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