For the non brainwashed

For those of you who have not been programmed (often on the basis of no personal experience whatsoever) to believe “good fruitcake” is an oxymoron:

The two of you might be interested in this.

I decided in November to try making a couple of fruitcakes, my first efforts in that direction. One came out pretty good; the other was really good.

If you do think you don’t like fruitcake, and it’s because you’re averse to heavy, dense cakes, well, move on. This is heavy, dense, very moist. Maybe too moist.

If you think you don’t like fruitcake because you can’t stand the chewy, garish artificially colored candied fruit: Mine didn’t use any. All the fruit was dried.

If your objection is that you don’t like booze in your dessert… well, I suppose you could leave it out. I didn’t.

I worked from two recipes I found on the web, but the one I liked better and will return to was based on this one. I did make some changes. I used dried cherries and fresh orange peel instead of candied, and I sprinkled the cake with brandy before wrapping. And I didn’t have a tin large enough for the cake (I baked it in an 8 or 9 inch springform pan) so wrapped it in brandy-moistened cheesecloth, then parchment paper, then plastic wrap, and stuck the whole thing under a plastic bucket in the basement for about six weeks. The resulting cake was a little on the gooey side; maybe I should have baked it a little longer, or maybe cut back on the apple juice to compensate for the added brandy? But I was very happy with the result anyway.

It makes a lot. I didn’t weigh the cake but it was certainly several pounds’ worth. Should last until we finish eating it, though.