SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 01, 2011

Fixing fruitcake

It is not too late to make your fruitcake, and it is not too late to save fruitcake in general from the "jokes" of late-night comedians.

The reason fruitcake is so disgusting is the lurid yet stale "fruitcake mix" sold in grocery stores. The tale of the One Fruitcake (there is only one fruitcake in the world, and it is re-gifted every year to a new victim) is a myth, but one that stems from the One Fruitcake Mix: sometime in the 50s, a fruitcake mix manufacturer (and that stuff is more manufactured) made far too much fruitcake mix in an effort to corner the market, stored it in warehouses in the desert, and has been selling the increasingly stale stuff since then. The unnatural colors could be a side effect of whatever the government is storing near by.

If the tale of the One Mix isn't true, that stuff tastes like it.

To fix the mix, and fix your fruitcake, you must either order real Irish or British "mixed peel" from the web, or candy your own peel: save thick citrus peels like orange, lemon and grapefruit (clementines and tangerines are too thin) double-bagged in the freezer. When you have about a gallon bag full of peel, throw them all (still frozen) into a pot of boiling water, and boil for a few minutes. Drain and cool. When cool enough to handle, use a spoon to scrape the pith off the peel (that is, scrape off the part left over from juicing and whatever is loose, don't try to scrape all the white off). Boil again, and this time measure how much water you need to cover all the peel. Drain again.

[Roasted nuts being sold at Philadelphia's Christmas Village]Make a medium syrup (1 part water by volume to 1 1/2 parts sugar by volume) using the same amount of water that you used in boiling the peel. So, if you used 6 cups of water to cover the peel in the second boiling, mix (in the same now empty pot) 6 cups of water with 9 cups of sugar (6 times 1 1/2) and bring to a low boil.

When the sugar in the syrup has dissolved, add the peel and stir. Continue to boil gently. At this point, you can walk away and do something else for 10 or 15 minutes at a time as long as the pot doesn't boil over. Come back, give it a stir, poke anything under that's peeping out of the water.

As the water boils off and the peel absorbs the sugar, stir more frequently. Eventually, the pot will contain a thick, sticky syrup and candied peel. Not all the sugar will be absorbed -- the peel should still be soft and pliable. Allow to cool and chop the peel before putting into freezer containers.

I like to make my orange and lemon peel separately so that the flavors don't blend, and I can use them in place of citronat and orangat.

The second thing to do is to cut fruitcake into small slices and eat it with strong tea or coffee. It's a dense cake: don't try to eat a Cheesecake-Factory-sized slice of it! A little fruitcake goes a long way.

Thirdly, use a good whiskey, and "water" it regularly. If you make your cake in October, weekly watering is sufficient. If you wait until after Thanksgiving, water it twice weekly with 2 tablespoons whiskey for the entire batch of cake. So, a small fruitcake loaf might get only 1/4 tsp of whiskey.