Fruitcake 2011

It's about to get all Christmasy up in here.

Here's a simple start to the Christmas posts on Button Soup.  Last year I wrote about the importance of fruitcake.  I'm fine-tuning my recipe year to year, and I thought I'd share the 2011 version.

This year I used our local evans cherries instead of the BC bings.  They were so soft after the glacé process I worried they would be too delicate to fold into the dense pound cake batter.  While they definietly don't hold their round shape like the bings, they managed to stay in one piece.  Their tartness is a welcomed addition to the cake.  There are some cursory instructions on making glacé cherries and candying peel in last year's fruitcake post.

Maybe next year I can use beaked hazelnuts from the river valley...


Fruitcake

Ingredients

• 8 oz unsalted butter, cubed
• 8 oz granulated sugar
• 8 oz eggs
• 8 oz all-purpose flour, sifted
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• 5 oz roasted, skinned hazelnuts
• 5 oz glacé evans cherries, strained from liquid
• 5 oz candied orange peel
• approximately 1 cup of fine, spiced rum

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Thoroughly butter the base and sides of a ceramic terrine and line with parchment.
3. Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Cream with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy, about five minutes.  Start on a low speed, and once the sugar and butter have combined, turn to medium-high.
4. With mixer still running, add the eggs one at a time, allowing each to be fully incorporated before adding the next.  Add the orange zest and juice.
5. Turn the mixer to  the lowest speed.  Slowly add the flour.  Stop the mixer as soon as all the flour is incorporated into the batter.  Do not over-mix.
6. Fold in the hazelnuts, cherries, and candied peel.
7. Transfer the batter to the prepared terrine.  Bake in the 325°F oven until the top of the cake is domed and brown, and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, roughly 60 minutes.
8. Remove the cake from terrine and cool on a wire rack.
9. Once cooled.  Transfer the cake to a container with an airtight lid.
10. Store the cake at a cool room temperature, about 15°C.  Every other day for 1 month sprinkle 1 tbsp of rum over the cake, getting the liquor on all the surfaces.  I affectionately refer to this as feeding the fruitcake.