I'm gone for just a couple of minutes, and already Craven is having a medical emergency? Has to be all this talk about fruitcake. Guess it can be pretty dangerous stuff, can't it?
Matrix500
.. Sorry for deviating from the topic ..
Sounds a really really good recipe.
Eggnog with rum sounds terrific. You're making me hungry!
Exactly. Which is another excellent reason not to like the stuff.
I don't like the North American/Brit fruit cakes and the ones from the West Indies could sink you, but I am a fan of stollen and can even deal with panettone. All variants of the same thing, but i like the light ones. In the stollen (did i post the recipe here or at Taunton) i make, i replaced all the candied fruit with different kinds of raisins and dried currants - and i use lots of home-toasted and slivered almonds and amaretto - it's kind of like a boozed-up, slightly yeasty raisin bread. It's pretty popular. I don't make it often, cuz it's a lot of work (triple rising) but when i do, i make a lot, because the requests are there.
It makes really really good french toast if you use eggnog with a little more amaretto thrown in. mmmmmmmm and Grade B maple syrup. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I can eat stollen -- it's got more cake and less fruit, etc. (but some of them are very dry and I don't like them).
Stollen isn't really a cake, it's a bread like panettone. Most people eat it with butter, unless it's been iced. A good home made stollen won't be dry, but it won't be leaden like a fruitcake.
I thought panettone was what everyone was talking about, that's what they eat here.
Don't like pannetone, either (though I've only had packaged which came in gift baskets and I'm guessing it's not the best). I never knew you were supposed to butter your stollen (and my mother was German).
ehBeth, reading about that French bread makes me a bit tipsy... sounds luscious tho.
I almost made fruitcake for Christmas presents last year. Oops. Glad I didn't. I wanted something fairly labor-intensive but cheap, that would travel well. Got some good recipes on Abuzz. That reminds me, gotta go find that thread again, as I'd like to do that (bake goodies, send) again this year. Did brownies last year, I think, but forget the recipe. It was something super simple. From Vincent, I believe. Involved condensed milk.
There are a couple of super 'travelling cookie' threads at taunton right now. I don't care for their mags much, but the cooking and gardening forums are probably the best out there right now (if you ignore the food snobs).
Now brownies are something everyone can love. Excellent choice. And cookies are terrific, too. Just not fruitcake.
Bandylu, have you ever made raisin bread from scratch? A good stollen will be an upscale cousin of a perfect scratch raisin bread.
Craven, a panettone is NOT a fruitcake - or as we refer to them - anchors.
Both panettone and stollen can be toasted - fruitcake in the toaster would probably destroy the toaster and kill everyone in the house in the process. All those nasty chemicals in the dyed fruit.
Not any more. But I used to have to when my sister-in-law baked it every year. Could not bear to say no knowing how hard she worked to get all those fruit cakes made.
Don't make me eat brownies - just another form of torture to me.
(It was actually Terri K.'s recipe that I followed, but Vincent has some humdingers as always.)
Or nasty honey spice cake. My aunt used to make it for my father and me every year. My mother would put it in the freezer and it would eventually disappear. Same thing with those chocolate turtle things - 2 boxes into the freezer every December 25th.
sozobe, that link is to a thread inviting people here. Is that the one you meant to give us?
ehBeth, I've never baked any bread from scratch (hubby has a few times, though). I have made a pound cake with fruits in it from scratch and it was quite good. I'm more of a cake eater than a bread eater -- like the sweetness (just not candied fruit sweet).
Why don't you like brownies?
Joanne, I know how it is. That's one reason I don't give out food to too many people -- I'd hate to think they were eating it to be polite (but people do love my cookies).
I don't like brownies cuz they have chocolate and they're tooooo sweet. It takes me 3 or 4 cups of tea to force my way through a corner of a brownie. I don't like really sweet things much. I don't like sweet chocolate - give me bittersweet any day. No to sweet wines - dry dry dry please. I'd rather eat a tomato than almost any sugary candy. Tomatoes are sweet enough for me. Can you imagine, some people put sugar on their tomatoes to eat them!
Right, bandylu, wrong link. Oops. Changed it.
