It wouldn’t be the holidays without an East Coast fruitcake
Around the turn of the century, Mary Jane MacNeil’s great-great-grandmother, who had settled in North Sydney, N.S., became well known for her fruitcakes. She would start in January when she’d obtain a molasses/whisky barrel. Then she’d start to add fruit and fruit peels (lemons, limes, and oranges) from her husband’s travels from North Sydney to Newfoundland and France.
Her recipe was made by weighing all the ingredients and baking the fruitcakes by mid-October, says MacNeil, who lives in Halifax, N.S. It would then be wrapped in brandy-soaked cheesecloth, buried in sugar, and stored until Christmastime when it would be unwrapped, heavily moistened with brandy, and then served to hotel guests and family members.
Here on the East Coast, Edna Reid of Charlottetown believes fruitcake is just as popular today as it was in years gone by. She still avidly makes them and has donated several over the years to benefit fundraisers for families who have a loved one who is ill or other charity auctions. Most times, she says, her fruitcakes are auctioned for more than $200 or $250.
WHAT RECIPE TO USE?
When looking for a recipe, there are many choices. The first thing to consider is the difference between an English Christmas pudding and a fruitcake.
Adrian Bligh, owner of Birkinshaw’s Tea Room in Amherst, N.S., says there are several types of fruitcakes and just as many ways to make them.
Dark fruitcake, says Bligh, is a traditional English method made mostly of fruit, fed with alcohol. Using rum or brandy to soak the fruit for 12 weeks prior to baking is a must. Bligh says they use port.
“This is necessary not for the alcohol, which cooks off, but for the depth of flavour,” says Bligh.
The alcohol provides the moisture because as the cakes are cooked so long and slowly, they need that moisture, says Bligh.
Light fruit cake, Bligh says, is a bit crumblier and has a higher percentage of cake than fruit. This, he says, is more of a French style of cake.
Reid says many people enjoy a tropical fruitcake, which uses tropical dried and candied fruits like mango, papaya, pineapple, almonds, and coconut rum. Baking tips
Fruitcakes, says Bligh, are not hard to make - they just require time and need to be ‘fed’ each week until matured.
One of the tips Reid learned from her mom was to steam the fruitcake in a roaster of water in the oven, at a low temperature, and then remove it from the water about half an hour before it is ready to come out of the oven.
MacNeil says she bakes her fruitcakes in loaf pans. When she removed them fresh from the oven, she immediately pours another one ounce of the same 151 per cent proof rum that she used to soak the fruit in over the top of the cakes.
The loaves are then stored in air-tight containers and, once a week, about five millilitres of the same 151 per cent proof rum is drizzled over the loaves, in what MacNeil refers to as the “marinating stage.”
HOW TO SERVE
Reid likes a nice white buttercream frosting on fruitcake. MacNeil suggests eating it with ice cream or with a marzipan frosting like her mother used to make.
NEWFOUNDLAND CHERRY CAKE
by Barry Parsons, Rock Recipes (https://www.rockrecipes.com/newfoundland-cherrycake/)
INGREDIENTS
• 1 pound chopped glace cherries + 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cups butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp almond extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup lukewarm,
• undiluted evaporated milk
INSTRUCTIONS
Rinse the cherries in a colander to remove any syrup that they may have been stored in. Pat them day between layers of paper towels. This step helps prevent the cherries from sinking into the batter as well. Depending on their size, cut them into halves or quarters and set aside for later. They will get tossed in 1/4 cup of flour later but not until just before they are folded into the batter.
Cream together the butter and sugar well.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until light and fluffy.
Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts.
Sift together the 3 cups of flour and baking powder.
Fold dry ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with the lukewarm milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. As a general rule, I add the dry ingredients in three portions and the milk in 2 portions.
Fold in the chopped glace cherries that have been tossed at the last minute in the 1/4 cup flour.
Bake in greased and floured spring form pan, tube pan or two loaf pans, lined with parchment paper. Bake at 325 degrees F for 45 minutes - one hour, depending upon the size of your pan.
Baking times vary greatly on this recipe so rely on the toothpick test to ensure that it is properly baked. When a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, its done. Be careful not to go past this stage or the cake will be dry.
Let the cake cool in the pan(s) for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.