Greetings!

This recipe is for ang1e31 who requested a recipe for
Christmas Cake

"I would like a recipe for Christmas Cake. It should
include information including when is the best time to
make a Christmas Cake, how long should it lie before
Christmas. What liqueur would you recommend putting in
cake."

Dark Fruitcake (USENET)
Yield: 7 pounds

16 ounces Candied citron, fruit or peels
8 ounces Candied cherries
1 cup Dark raisins
1 cup Golden raisins
1 1/3 cups Calmyra figs, cut into pieces
1 1/3 cups Dates (pitted), thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups Pecan halves (or walnuts)
1/2 cup Brandy
3 cups All-purpose flour
2 teaspoons Baking powder
2 teaspoons Salt
1 tablespoon Cinnamon, ground
1 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
1 teaspoon Allspice, ground
1 teaspoon Cloves, ground
4 Eggs
1 3/4 cups Brown sugar, packed
1 cup Orange juice
3/4 cup Butter, melted, then cooled
1/4 cup Light molasses (treacle)

Mid-November is the best time to bake this cake. The
cake develops its unique combination of tastes as well
as texture over this time, and also gives the baker
time to mail or otherwise deliver gifts of the cake.

Mix fruits together in a bowl. Pour brandy over
fruits. Turn fruit mixture over every 20 minutes.
Soaking time is a matter of taste, but two hours is
typical. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Prepare tube
pan: grease sides and bottom. Line bottom and sides
with greased brown paper.

In a very large bowl, mix flour, spices, baking powder
and salt. Stir until spices are evenly blended
throughout.

In a third bowl, beat eggs until fluffy. Add brown
sugar, orange juice, molasses and butter. Mix, making
sure that all the sugar dissolves.

Pour off any liquid from fruit mixture and add the
fruit and the nuts to the dry ingredients. Mix until
all fruit pieces are coated. Then pour in the liquids
and mix gently until you have an evenly-mixed batter.

Pour batter into pan and bake at 300 degrees F. for 1
hour. Cover pan with foil and bake for 1 hour more or
until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool for 30 minutes before removing from pan. Peel off
paper very carefully.

Put cake in cake tin lined with foil. For the next 3
to 4 weeks, sprinkle a little brandy over cake twice a
week. Keep cake covered and store the tin in the
refrigerator. If you prefer to omit the brandy, cover
top of cake with very thin slices of apple instead.

NOTES:

* An extravagant, traditional fruitcake -- This is
about as rich a fruitcake as you could possibly want
to make. It started life as a Better Homes and Gardens
recipe, but has been changed beyond all recognition.

Yield: a 7 lb cake.

* This makes a HUGE cake. If your tube pan isn't at
least 10 X 4 inches, there is a fair chance that it
will run over; in that case, use several loaf pans
instead (fill loaf pans about half-way). A pan with a
removable center will make extracting the cake much
easier.

* Except for mixing the liquids, an electric beater is
useless for this recipe.

* In the USA, candied fruits typically come in
packages of the indicated sizes. If you have to
measure by volume, use 2 1/2 cups of candied citron
and 1 1/3 cups of the candied cherries. I prefer
citron instead of the mixture because there's no
bitterness from the rinds, although the cake isn't so
colorful. Calmyra figs are the light-colored figs most
commonly seen in North America.

: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 2 hours preparation (including soaking the
fruit), 2 hours baking, several weeks mellowing.
: Precision: Measure batter ingredients carefully.
Fruit and nut quantities are somewhat flexible.
: Charles Wingate
: University of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.,
College Park, Maryland, USA
: seismo!mimsy!mangoe or

: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust


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