Fruitcake fans serve it over the holidays.
Fruitcake is a traditional, delicious holiday treat with a long shelf life, especially if the cake uses liquor as an ingredient or when wrapped in rum- or brandy-soaked towels to cure. When making a fruitcake, bakers combine fat with sugar; add eggs and liquids, then dry ingredients, followed by the intensely flavored dried fruit and nuts. The oven heat sets the fruitcake, removes the raw taste of the ingredients and distributes the flavors throughout the loaf.
Dry Ingredients
Typical fruitcake uses a long list of dry ingredients including sugar, leavening agents, flour and spices. Although sugars in the dried fruit in fruitcake add to the sweetness, sugar in the form of honey, white sugar, brown sugar or molasses intensify the taste. All-purpose flour provides the starch for the fruitcake, helping to hold the cake together. The leavening agents, baking powder and baking soda, add lightness to the fruitcake. Spices typically include cinnamon and ginger, although other spices like mace, nutmeg and cardamom enhance the flavor of the fruitcake. Most recipes suggest combining the flour with the spices first to evenly distribute the flavor.
Wet Ingredients
Eggs, water, fruit juice, extracts and rum or brandy add moistening agents and flavor to the fruitcake. The eggs work with the flour as a binding agent. Both eggs and flour have proteins, which tighten when heated, which firms the fruitcake. The fruit juice intensifies the flavor of fruit throughout the cake, as does the rum or brandy. Not all fruitcakes have alcohol as an ingredient, flavoring or preservative, although fruitcakes with alcohol last longer. Vanilla extract or almond extract add a hint of flavor to the cake.
Fats
The fat in fruitcake can be shortening, butter or cooking oil. The fat carries the flavors throughout the cake and makes the cake richer and moister. Fat keeps proteins from forming long strands, tenderizing the cake. Butter enhances the flavor, but shortening and cooking oil do not since these oils have no taste. The egg yolks add to the fat content in a fruitcake, since more than half the weight of an egg yolk is fat.
Fruit
The fruit inside a fruitcake can include chopped dried citrus peels, candied or dried cherries and pineapple, dates, nuts or dried cranberries or blueberries. Raisins and currants can go into fruitcakes, as well. Most recipes specify what to include, but cooks can leave out fruit that she or her family do not like, substituting a preferred dried fruit. Chopped pecans, almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts lend a crunch to a fruitcake.
Tags: dried fruit, flavor fruitcake, flavors throughout, fruit juice, leavening agents, Most recipes
