Fruit Cake Making Time

Here it is October already and it is time to begin making Christmas fruit cake! Oh, I know what you are saying!  Fruitcake! Yuk!  That's because you've probably never had real fruit cake. Back in the early 1960's "McCall's" magazine published a recipe for "Holiday White Fruitcake". My mother and sister and I would spend a happy Saturday, usually a week or so before Thanksgiving, making this fruitcake recipe. It's a white fruitcake studded with almonds, golden raisins and a plethora of candied fruits. We made it in angel food cake pans, wrapped the cooled cakes in pieces of old pillow cases, soaked them in dry Sherry and stored them in large round metal tins left undisturbed except for the occasional addition of more Sherry, until Christmas. My grandparents and great aunt loved this fruit cake and we feasted on it all through Christmas and well in to January.

Now days we don't always make the fruitcake since we've all become very health and diet conscious. And too, the candied fruit you buy in the grocery just isn't very nice. For a while I bought my fruits from King Arthur Flour. They import candied fruits from England where fruitcake is a fairly common thing and their candied fruit is very good. It's also very expensive, so a few years ago I began candying my own. I use the recipes from a book called "Better Than Store Bought" and without sounding too braggadocios, I have to say, my fruitcake is the best I've every eaten. 

Now you might think this is really going too far, but honestly, its worth the extra time it takes and it's easy. . To candy pineapple, for example, use canned pineapple in its own juice, a little light corn syrup and granulated sugar and boil it all together. I also buy frozen or canned pie cherries and candy them as well. My fruit cakes have no green cherries, only red.  I've tried candying the black cherries but they don't have the flavor of pie cherries. I also candy the lemon peel and orange peel.  I'd candy the citron as well, but haven't been able to get my hands on any citron melon, so I just add extra lemon peel. 

So, this weekend I will begin my fruit cake baking by candying the pineapple. I plan to make several small loaf pan sized fruit cakes so everyone can have a little fruit cake to keep on hand to have with tea over the holidays. The recipe calls for 8 ounces of candied pineapple. I'm going to candy two 20 ounce cans of pineapple chunks, so should have more than enough.