12 Days of Prunemas: Quick Fruitcake
The real 12 Days of Christmas brought to you by CAPrunes and a quick Christmas fruitcake.
This is a post for all subscribers sponsored by CAPrunes. It is the first of 12 posts over the next 12 days, celebrating ways to enjoy delicious prunes.
WELCOME TO THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS! You read that right! TODAY IS CHRISTMAS AND IT’S ONLY DAY ONE! Somewhere along the way of us wanting to celebrate holidays earlier and earlier every year, the 12 Days of Christmas was moved up from starting December 25 running to January 6, to instead begin mid December and end on Christmas Day. This advanced timeline aligns great for almighty capitalism, giving us days of buying, making and gifting leading up to a BIG DAY! But in the past these would have been 12 nights dedicated to celebrating and gathering in the darkest part of winter. A way to celebrate but also welcome a new year together, small fires against winters larger looming darkness. You might know some lore? Like that the twelfth night is famous for closing out the Christmas season in revelry, its customary parties for the elite giving Shakespeare the perfect setting for a comedy of errors and disguises called Twelfth Night. Or the song the 12 Days of Christmas, that walks you through what a proper sweetheart should get his intended over the course of the days - a list that has changed over the course of 100+ years to include boys a singing, hares a running and parts of juniper trees. (This list is really just coded Christian symbolism!)
What I love about this year’s 12 Days of Christmas, is they mostly run the same time as the 8 Days of Hanukkah. Allowing for lots of reasons for celebration. Growing up, my experience of the 12 days of Christmas was more solemn coming from a predominately catholic practicing hispanic family. December 25, Christmas, to January 6, the Epiphany, charted the course of the wise men’s arrival to witness the birth of Jesus. We actually liked to stretch “Christmastide” all the way out to February 2 with a final celebration called Candlemas, when Jesus was presented at the Temple. Perhaps people who like to hold onto their tree till Valentine’s Day can use this as a good excuse? For EAT MORE, the 12 Days of Christmas means you don’t need to come crashing down from your Christmas high just yet - let’s party on! I will be bringing you 12 recipes in 12 days celebrating PRUNES! One of my favorite foods, that doesn't get enough love but really really should. #12DaysofPrunemas. The posts/recipes will be shorter format and intended to be easy lifts for you. So you can eat well - get ready for savory and sweet!- but spend most of your time celebrating and gathering with the ones you love - aka what it’s really about!
So for our glorious kickoff I have for you a DAY 1 QUICK FRUITCAKE. Fruitcake can be intimidating for the same reasons people fall madly in love with making it - it always has a story, it needs tending and soaking with liquors, it’s full of treasures and flavor. If you want to enjoy one today, you had better started a while ago basically. Unless you want a quick one! Fruitcake purists stop reading (Deep Dive here!), novices please read on. The cake below may not look like much but she is very heavily spices, full of yummy fillings and toasted flour to maximize flavor. She’s old school and simple. It is non alcoholic, using a blend of syrups to saturate your cake instead of booze. You can make it this morning and enjoy it same day. I give you the gram limits for spices and fillings here, so as to encourage you to use mine as a model but grab what you have in your pantry to make your unique fruitcake. I loved playing up the prunes with more stonefuit in the form of apricot. I chose a soak that was part citrus syrup, ginger syrup and almond syrup.
Once your cake is baked, tuck in with a slice and a cup of tea to this delightful reading of Washington Irving’s Old Christmas that entails origins of many modern traditions.
QUICK FRUITCAKE
Makes one 8” cake
160g All Purpose Flour
130g Toasted Whole Grain flour (preferably a hard red or rye)
300g Cane sugar
75g Muscovado sugar (or other dark brown sugar)
5g kosher sea salt
12g baking soda
100g oil
165g milk
4 eggs
10g lemon juice
10g vanilla bean paste
Ground SPICES (up to 50g): 10g cinnamon, 10g ginger, 5g coriander, 3g cardamon, 3g white pepper, 3g black pepper, 3g star anise, 3g clove, 3 g nutmeg
Chopped FILLINGS (up to 500g): 180g prunes, 40g dried apricots, 60g pistachio, 20g coconut flakes, 80g candied citrus, 40g candied ginger
300-400g Syrup from Candied fruits or Store Bought
Method:
Set your oven to 350 degrees. Spread whole grain flour onto a sheet tray and toast for 10 minutes, till lightly golden brown and slightly fragrant. Set aside to cool. Prepare a 8” or 10” inch pan with parchment paper and a light coating of baking spray.
In a medium bowl combine all your dry ingredients, including your cooled toasted flour and all your ground spices. Use a whisk to mix. Add all your wet ingredients, including vanilla bean paste, and stir with your whisk till just combined. Swap your whisk for a wooden spoon and gently stir in all your fillings. Pour your batter into the prepared pan.
Bake cake in the middle rack of your oven for 40-50 minutes, till fragrant, golden brown and the center springs back lightly from your touch. While cake is baking pour your chosen syrup into a squeeze bottle or piping bag. Set aside. Once baked, pull from oven and poke all over with a skewer. Use your squeeze bottle or piping bag with a very small cut at the tip, to soak the cake. Force syrup into the holes you’ve poked with your skewer, until you have no more. Allow cake to sit for 1 hour to fully absorb syrup. When ready to serve, invert onto a sheet tray and then flip onto a plate or cake board. Serve with really good butter, like Kerry Gold Salted…my favorite for spreading.
Highly recommend toasting slices of cake or griddling in cast iron before topping with butter.
Note: An 8' inch pan will need longer to bake than a 10 inch.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY HANUKKAH! See you tomorrow with another exciting recipe for #12daysofPrunemas.
xoxo
P.s. I am excited to try my variation of spices and fillings in Camilla Wynne’s Fruitcake Cookies form her incredible new book Nature’s Candy, for another fast fruitcake hit this Christmas Day! NEVER STOP BAKING.
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Thanks for your post. I enjoyed reading it.
If I make it, could I reduce the sugar, and by how far?
Your book, Bread and Roses, sounds fascinating!
Happy holidays!