who all has started making their Christmas fruitcakes?

[piperdbh]

My mother used to make wedding cakes as a additional income...

The Mrs. and I do that, too.

...it was not unusual to have the cake baked at least 6 months in advance, but only marizpaned and iced shortly before the wedding itself.

I've never had fruitcake at a wedding here in the US ofA. We use pound, sponge, carrot, red velvet, various chocolate and a few other cakes, but I don't know of anyone who has served fruitcake.

...there was also the tradition of keeping the small top tier for the christening cake of the first child...

In my country, the tradition is to keep the top tier and eat it on the couple's first anniversary.[/quote]

I can can remember big wall cupboards from my childhood with lots of diffferent fruit cakes in all sorts of sizes with labels for many diffferent families.

That must have been a sweet-smelling kitchen!

[BEEDEE]

I've never had fruitcake at a wedding here in the US ofA. We use pound, sponge, carrot, red velvet, various chocolate and a few other cakes, but I don't know of anyone who has served fruitcake.

We did!!! Made a traditional fruit cake from an old New Zealand recipe and covered it with marzipan and royal icing.

But my favorite for a Christmas cake is Black Bun.

Brian

[piperdbh]

We did!!! Made a traditional fruit cake from an old New Zealand recipe and covered it with marzipan and royal icing.

But you didn't invite me to the wedding, Brian!

The Mrs. and I made our own wedding cake, too, but it was a 10-egg pound cake recipe covered with Wilton-recipe buttercream and store-boughten fondant. I've since reformed my ways.

[Paul Henry]

In the UK , it is very traditional to have a rich fruit cake for your wedding, although tastes are changing and lighter sponge/chocolate/etc types are becoming more common.

I'm not sure I'd want to keep a sponge cake for a year for an anniversary though....

On the subject of "feeding" a cake. my mother never used any alcohol in the fruit cakes, relying on the natural ageing process to mature and keep moist,she was a very good Presbyterian of the old school!

Yes the house had a wonderful smell of cakes cooking, I especially remember the smell of the singeing paper in the AGA to stop the tops of hte cakes getting too brown, it's one of those very special childhood smells for me.

I normally soak the fruit for a few days in a mixture of fruit juice/spirit usually sherry or whisky, and then only add a little extra"liquid" about a month before it's needed.

[piperdbh]

I'm not sure I'd want to keep a sponge cake for a year for an anniversary though....

We freeze them, but I tell my customers to go ahead and cut the top tier at the reception, and I make them a duplicate for their first anniversary.

Did your mother make her own fondant? I make mine with melted marshmallows and lots of powdered sugar.

[Paul Henry]

We freeze them, but I tell my customers to go ahead and cut the top tier at the reception, and I make them a duplicate for their first anniversary.

Did your mother make her own fondant? I make mine with melted marshmallows and lots of powdered sugar.

Fondant icing was never used on wedding cakes, it was always royal icing, always! especially as fondant wouldn't have supported two or three tiers.
For birthday cakes and general lighter cakes, yes we did make the fondant icing ourselves, this was back perhaps over 40 years ago, when fondant paste was very much a rarity in the shops, I remember very well weighing out the liquid glucose, and mixing it for ages with icing sugar until it was beautifully smooth.

Beedee: Black Bun is normally associated with New Year over here rather than Christmas, but if you like it, eat it whenever you can!

[piperdbh]

In my experience, royal icing is only used for piping flowers and other small decorations that need to stay hard. Most cakes are iced in buttercream, although in the last ten years, thanks to Martha Stewart, fondant has become more popular.


Very different traditions, eh, Paul?

[JCheshire]

I start my fruitcakes the weekend before Thanksgiving on a Friday night after everyone's gone to sleep. I usually make 3 batches, which will yield 4 large loaves and 7 small ones, plus a large festive ring shape that I keep for the house. I'll sip a hot buttered rum or 2, maybe a shot of rum before I get started to make sure it's acceptable, and put on some Christmas CDs. I usually finish by 2 or 3 AM, let the cakes cool all the next day on a rack and then I brush them with rum using a pastry brush. I then wrap them in cheese cloth, REALLY soak them and do an over wrap of plastic. I let them sit quietly in the fridge for a week and then I unwrap the plastic and brush the cheesecloth with another dose of rum. Back into the fridge they go for another week and then, you guessed it, ANOTHER rum treatment. I let them sit for 3 more weeks and send them as gifts. The cost of postage is staggering! I think I spent close to $90 last year on postage alone, but my gosh they sure are good. I'm told by people my father's age (69) that they're better than their grandmothers used to make. Now, THAT is a compliment!

[Old Hippie]

Now that we've finished off the spring fruitcakes and are well into the summer fruitcakes while the autumn fruitcakes mature, it's time to start on Christmas. I have a sizable and growing collection of fruitcake recipes.

Every year I make a large batch and send them out to my extensive list called "Friends of Fruitcake.' (There are, at present, no openings on the list but reserve applications will be considered).

This year's offering will be a Tequila-Lime Fruitcake. I'm trialling the recipe now and it looks promising.

One of the best recipe collections I've seen is "Christmas Cakes and Puddings" edited and published by the Australian Womens' Weekly.

Wishin' y'all a merry cake in yer mailbox...

:ootd:

[Lyle1]

I will probably start making fruitcakes next month. The recipe that I use is not as heavy as some (lots of whipped egg whites), and calls for marinating the fruit overnight in white wine; no other liquor is added. I like it, and people usually ask if I'm making it about Thanksgiving; one friend in his 90's expects two, but he promises not to tell anybody else that he gets an extra one! It freezes and ships well. The recipe makes a single seven pound cake or seven one pound cakes.