Cake

Here is our recipe for Dark Fruit Cake

Dark Fruit Cake

(for Christmas and/or weddings - make at least 4 weeks in advance of event)

one recipe makes batter for two 8x8x3 inch pans

I confess that I have never made this cake... we always count on my mother to send us some. Many thanks to Mom for allowing me to post my grandmother's recipe. Mom makes 1½ times the recipe and uses the 10x10x3, 8x8x3, 6x6x3, pans; sometimes there's a bit left for a 4x4x3. She fills them to about 2¼ inches.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Put all the fruit into a very large bowl. Pour brandy over fruit mixture and let stand for a day.
2. The next day, add two thirds of the nuts. Sift dry ingredients over fruit and nut mixture, mix thoroughly.
3. In another bowl, cream butter until very soft. Gradually add white sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Add sherry, strawberry jam and vanilla.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the fruit and nut mixture; mix thoroughly with hands.
6. Heat the rest of the almonds in oven until piping hot (when you smell them, they are ready) and add at the very last. Mix thoroughly.
7. Pour into pans lined with 3 layers of buttered paper. Bake at 250F for 4 hours.

Mom says that Nana always remembered to set aside the 1/3 lb almonds to be heated and added to the cake mixture at the end. But she says that most of the time she has forgotten and put all the nuts in with the fruit and flour mix. She lines her pans with paper from brown paper grocery bags, buttered on the unprinted side.

A Word of Caution

When you are taking the cake out of the pan and it won't come out, do not, under any circumstances, carry the cake upside down to the kitchen table. (Don't ask....) However, if you do make this unfortunate error, the cake can be put back together by jamming it back in the pan with a little brandy to bind. It slices well but has a tendency to break apart when picked up off the serving platter. However, even broken apart, it still tastes wonderful!

And speaking of wonderful tastes, there's nothing more wonderful than thin slices of aged cheddar with thin slices of this luscious dark fruitcake. The combination of the aged cheese - aged gruyere or a really good parmiggiana works as well - with the fruitcake is truly ambrosial. Adding small sips of eau-de-vie (either grappa or poire or marc) to the taste is almost, but not quite, gilding the lily.

printer friendly file

Vínarterta is also an excellent cake to serve at weddings.

<>>8<<>8<><>8<>8<<>8<>>8<>>8<<>8<><<>8<>8<>

Back to our recipes


to Christmas Eve Menu 1996
to New Year's Eve Menu 1997
to blog from OUR kitchen - Lucky Us

ejm (aka llizard) 2000,2002,2007
Toronto Ontario Canada