When looking for a great Christmas cake recipe, fruit cakes naturally will be your first thought for they continue to be the most popular Christmas cakes, especially for gift giving. To have the fruit cake in time for the holidays, it is best to prepare early, for fruit cake must be given an opportunity to permit its flavors to blend and become mellow before it is eaten. There are several varieties and flavors of fruit cakes to choose from starting with a basic fruit cake recipe. A dark fruit cake would be made with molasses and there is also a white fruit cake or golden fruit cake. Other fruit cakes include Lady Baltimore Cake, and almond chocolate fruit cake. There are even eggless fruit cakes. The best recipes for fruit cake should make at least two large or several small loaves.
How to Make Fruit Cakes
In order to make any fruit cake successfully you must bake them in good sized batches. It will hardly pay for the trouble to make fruit cakes in small batches and the chances are that you will not get a good baking. Begin by mixing up the butter with the sugar; add the brandy, molasses and eggs, according to the cake flavor desired. Then sift in the flour, adding the desired fruit which has been previously dusted with flour, last. Be sure that the fruit is perfectly dry. Mix the mass thoroughly. Fruit cakes, if properly made and baked, will improve in quality with age and can be kept for months. To store these cakes, wrap tightly in waxed paper and store away in a cool place until brought forth for the icing and decorating.
Baking Fruit Cakes
Fruit cakes need a low but steady heat in a closed oven so that they will retain the flavor of the spiced steam. By baking in this way, it will be found that the cakes or loaves are not burned and crusty, nor will the upper and lower crust have a bitter burned sugar taste from the raisins or other fruit contained therein. The pans used should be lined with parchment paper. Fruit cake recipes produce very rich and delicious cakes that will keep for months in a cool place. Wrapped in plastic wrap covered with holiday paper and merrily tied with red ribbon with a sprig of holly on top recommends them as gifts to those thrifty souls who like to have their Christmas preparations well out of the way before the holiday season begins.
There are four fundamental materials which form the corner stones of the edifice of cake baking— flour, butter, sugar & eggs. With these alone, used in different proportions, a countless variety of savory and delicious cake recipes can be attained.
In order to make any fruit cake successfully you must bake them in good sized batches. It will hardly pay for the trouble to make fruit cakes in small batches and the chances are that you will not get a good baking. Begin by mixing up the butter with the sugar; add the brandy, molasses and eggs, according to the cake flavor desired. Then sift in the flour, adding the desired fruit which has been previously dusted with flour, last. Be sure that the fruit is perfectly dry. Mix the mass thoroughly. Fruit cakes, if properly made and baked, will improve in quality with age and can be kept for months. To store these cakes, wrap tightly in waxed paper and store away in a cool place until brought forth for the icing and decorating.
