I made a "Black Cake" for the holidays this year. The recipe came from the Houston Chronicle, published in early July, 2008. I was in Houston to attend my aunt's funeral, and I liked the idea of making the cake as a sort of tribute to her, even though I don't know if she ever made fruit cake. The recipe starts by calling for macerating dried fruit for several months in Manischewitz wine, which I dutifully carried out.
Mom used to make a fabulous fruit cake, which her children loved (from what I've heard, the fruit-cake-gene did not make it to the next generation). Hers is a very dark, crumbly but moist mixture of dried fruits and just enough cake to barely hold it all together, with big chunks of candied cherry punctuating the "healthy" fruit. And then it is soaked in brandy for as many months as possible (I remember the Christmas when I realized the brandy was a good flavor, and I could stop pushing the outer crust of cake to the side of the plate.) Last time I asked, she didn't have a recipe, or didn't know where it was, or something. Anyway, I'm going to put pressure on her to find it, or to make one up for me to try.
This "Black Cake" is pretty good. It is certainly moist, and if there aren't enough cherries, that's my own fault for not adding enough. It is far too light in flavor, however. The recipe called for a frosting of fondant, which I tried out of curiosity. I didn't make the fondant, but bought it in a box from a specialty store as recommended by several cookbooks. I wouldn't recommend it to others, unless you have a need for a splendid look (because even with the rips, uneven "ribbon" and smeared icing dots that I amateurishly produced, it looks quite wonderful), but the flavor was merely acceptable. (I am not a big frosting fan, however.)
3 comments:
Stunning cake! But how did the macerated cherries taste?
I think I macerated the dried fruit for several months (September to late November - I blogged about it then), but I didn't add in the candied cherries until I was mixing the batter. (Or, I added the candied cherries about a month before mixing -- I couldn't purchase any until November, when holiday supplies became available. I debated with myself about whether the candiedness would macerate well, and now I can't remember who won the debate.)
The cherries tasted fine, but there weren't enough of them.
By the way, I used a wide variety of dried fruit -- blueberries, cranberries, cherries, apricots, plums, raisins and zante currants.
love the picture! So very dark and atmospheric. Such a cake deserves candlelight and stained glass windows.
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