Some Sunday Night baking -- fruitcake and date nut bread. (Dial Up Warning -- Picture Heavy)

[Denninmi]

Christmas in my household is so NOT over. We have one more holiday celebration to go, but not for almost 2 weeks. This is courtesy of the fact that my sister is a nurse, and was forced to work New Years after volunteering to work Christmas. C'est la vie, it gives me some extra time to prepare for their visit.

So, it was time to make the holiday fruitcakes and date nut bread, two of her favorites:

Fruitcake first:

Nuts and Fruit:





Dry Ingredients:



Wet Ingredients:



Mixing batter and incorporating fruit:





In the pan and ready to bake:



Finished Loaf:



End product, sliced:



DATE NUT BREAD:



Sliced:

[yellerpup]

1. Beautiful food!

What an exciting photo essay; I can taste it with my eyes. Thanks for sharing this. :hi:

[japple]

2. Please give us a napkin next time! I wish I could taste that

date nut bread. The loaves are beautiful. I know your sister will love these.

[Lucinda]

3. I can smell the date nut bread!

Great work! I'm hungry now too! :P

[grasswire]

4. I was baking last night too!

Big family party coming up on Saturday at the retirement home where my mother's two remaining sisters live. There will be about sixty of us; at least four generations.

Last night I was making another double batch of apricot rollups (like rugelach) and toasting nuts and sesame seeds for other cookies to follow. I will be making my grandma's raisin filled cookies, too, in the next few days.

Your date bread looks like it needs a taste test...heheh. As Winnie the Pooh always said, "there might be cheese at the bottom." That was his rationale for always tasting the honey.

[blue neen]

5. The fruitcake looks beautiful!

I'd love to have the recipe! :)

[housewolf]

6. A small slice of each, please

I love fruitcake - and yours looks perfect. The Date bread looks great too - I 'spect your guests will have a hard time choosing between the two.

Glad you still have some holiday festivities to come... it's so much fun to bake and cook special things to share on special occasions. Lucky you!

Thanks for sharing your pics - my mouth is watering big time...

[Tesha]

nice photos too!

Oh and breads... yum!

Don't you love extended holidays?
We just had our last on Sunday...
both doughters came in the midst of a pasta making session and pitched in.
We has cheese filled, mushrooms and walnuts filled, plain spaghetti and squid-ink pasta...

guess which the 8 and 6 year old boys loved.. yes - the black pasta! hahahah

[Tesha]

7. nice photos too!

Oh and breads... yum!

Don't you love extended holidays?
We just had our last on Sunday...
both doughters came in the midst of a pasta making session and pitched in.
We has cheese filled, mushrooms and walnuts filled, plain spaghetti and squid-ink pasta...

guess which the 8 and 6 year old boys loved.. yes - the black pasta! hahahah

[Denninmi]

8. Thanks, everyone.

I should be working now (ok, taking a little break is allowed). So, I'm not at home.

Will post the recipes for these tonight, for those interested. Both are old family recipes. My mother remembers her mother baking these in the late 1930's, after they got on their feet again financially and could afford the ingredients.

[tigereye]

9. yum! I have to admit, I have always liked fruitcake

My mom used to make a really scrumptious apricot bread, too. (and I love dates)

[Arkansas Granny]

10. That fruitcake looks wonderful. Just enough batter to hold the fruit and nuts

together and it looks like you used lots of spices. Yum!

[Denninmi]

11. Here are the recipes:

FRUITCAKE

3 cups hot water
3/4 cup ( 1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine

Heat water and butter or margarine until the fat is completely melted. Set aside to cool somewhat.

3 cups sugar (I usually use about 2 cups white and 1 cup brown)
6 cups flour (all purpose or half all purpose and half pastry flour for a more tender cake)
1 1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Sift all dry ingredients together until completely blended. Add the hot water and melted butter, and stir gently until completely mixed. Do not overstir or it will toughen the gluten in the flour

This amount of batter is enough for a fairly large amount of candied and dried fruits and nuts.

I used the following with the above quantity of batter to yield 4 standard loaf-sized fruitcakes:

1 cup whole brazil nuts
1 cup whole pecans
1 1/2 cups black walnut pieces
1 large carton (about the size of a 24 ounce carton of cottage cheese) fruitcake mix candied fruits
1 medium carton (about the size of a 16 ounce carton of cottage cheese) candied pineapple
1 medium carton candied cherries
1/2 lb dried apricots
1/2 lb dried plums
1 standard box (12 ounces?) raisins
1/2 standard box golden raisins

The type and amount of fruits and nuts is kind of up to you. Basically, almost any dried fruit or nut will work. You need to have enough batter to hold the mixture together, as shown in my photos, but essentially, mine was probably about 2 parts fruit/nut mix to one part batter.

Mix together, and pour into prepared pans. At a minimum, grease and flour the pans. This cake can be hard to remove from the pan -- I strongly suggest lining the pans with greased and floured parchament paper.

Bake at 300 degrees for about 75 to 90 minutes. It's done when a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Please note - the edges become quite crisp and a little hard. This is fine. After the cake sits for a few days, you need to brush it several times with either thawed frozen concentrated orange juice, a flavored sugar syrup, and/or your choice of liquors. This softens the hard crust.

Allow the cakes to cool completely before removing from the pans. Run a sharp knife around the edges, and remove carefully. They can be hard to get out of the pan, which is why the parchament is a good idea. You can also bake these in springform pans for easier removal.


DATE NUT BREAD

10 to 12 ounces of dates, pitted and cut into thirds.
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 teaspoons baking soda

Combine the dates, baking soda, and boiling water. It will foam a bit -- use a large bowl. Set aside until cooled to lukewarm

When cooled, add in:

1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine

In a large mixing bowl, combine

2 3/4 cups flour (all purpose or 1/2 all purpose and half pastry)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sift or stir to blend completely.

Then, pour in your wet ingredient mixture, and stir until just completely incorporated and no more flour lumps.

Stir in 1 cup of nuts of your choice. I used 1/2 black walnuts and 1/2 pecans.

Pour the batter into 2 standard loaf pans which have been greased and floured. Bake at 365 for approximately 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, and the cake pulls away slightly from the pan.

This one should be removed from the pans after it's cooled about 15 minutes.

[housewolf]

12. Mmmmm.... all my favorite nuts, fruits and spices

When I was at the supermarket on Monday they had candied fruits and nuts on sale, I wonder if they still will be by the time I can get there tomorrow?

Thanks for posting your recipes, a very generous offering to DU

[tigereye]

13. curious why you melt the butter in the water -

what is the cooking/chemical reason for that?

thanks for the recipes, btw, they look scrumptious!

[Denninmi]

14. Why melt the butter?

I haven't got a clue, except perhaps it's an easier way to blend it in than trying to cut solid butter into the flour.

It's a REALLY old family recipe. My grandmother used to make this when my mother was a young girl in the 1930's.

So, I guess the real reason is "tradition".

It would be fun to have someone who knows about the science of baking, like the America's Test Kitchen people, see if there was a valid reason for it, and whether it's a good or bad thing overall for the outcome.

Honestly, this batter isn't anything particularly sophisticated. I bet if you put the flour and butter into a food processor and whirled it to fully incorporate, and then went from there, it would probably work out the same in the end.

[tigereye]

15. wondered if that was common in types of bread-making

because a lot of baking involves melting butter separately and adding water separately, or what have you.


Just curious... :hi:

[Sentath]

16. It changes the way the flour grains interact with the water

If they hit and take up the fat first they don't get 'wet' and no gluten forming reaction can happen. Makes it tender, while leaving it dense.