Favorite Fruitcakes

One of the best fruitcake books out there is Moira Hodgson’s Favorite Fruitcakes. Hodgson is a Brit and they have a much greater appreciation of fruitcakes. Favorite Fruitcakes collects a variety of “famous” fruitcake recipes or perhaps they are just “famous” cooks. Anyway, this is great compendium of fruitcake facts and zippy recipes.

This recipe is from Craig Claiborne. It was his mother’s favorite recipe. Claiborne took her mixed fruit and nuts and weighed them out replacing the candied fruit with candied ginger and the mixed nuts with black walnuts.

Craig Caliborne’s Walnut and Ginger Fruitcake.

½ pound candied ginger in 1/4" cubes (about 1 cup)
1 ½ cups golden raisins
3 ¾ cups walnuts, preferably black walnuts, broken in pieces
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Salt to taste
1 pound (4 sticks) butter, cut in 1-inch cubes
2 cups sugar
6 eggs, separated
1/3 cup Madeira or sweet sherry


1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Lightly butter a 10-inch, 12-cup Bundt pan. Sprinkle with flour; shake pan to coat inside. Shake out excess.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine ginger, raisins and walnuts.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Sift this mixture over ginger and nut mixture.
4. Put the butter in the bowl of an electric mixture. Start beating while gradually adding the sugar. Cream the mixture well and gradually beat in egg yolks. Beat in Madeira.
5. Pour and scrape this mixture over nuts and blend the ingredients thoroughly. This is best done by hand.
6. Beat the egg whites until stiff and thoroughly fold in, until they do not show.
7. Pour batter into the prepared pan, and smooth over the top with a spatula. Set pan on a baking sheet and place in oven. Bake about 2 1/4 hours, or until cake is puffed above pan and nicely browned on top or until internal temperature is 200 degrees on a thermometer.
8. Remove cake from pan shortly after baking. Tapping the bottom of the pan with a heavy knife will help. Store cake for at least 10 days. If desired, add occasional touch more of Madeira or sherry (or Cognac or rum, if desired). Keep closely covered, wrapped in cheesecloth or foil, and refrigerated until ready to use.

Check out Lucindaville’s Fruitcake post for sources for great fruit and nuts.

A Cookbook for Booksellers

In the early 1960 The New York Times commissioned a small cookbook from Craig Claiborne, their most illustrious cooking editor. The slim hardback was entitled A Cookbook for Booksellers. The book was designed:

"To full the fulling bookseller. Sort of a tribute by one fulling expert to another."

I am not sure why the New York Time printed this volume or why it was sent to booksellers. (If you know, e-mail us.)

The recipes come from a dozen writers’ works. The authors run the gamut from Tobias Smollett to Clifton Fadiman.

As a child, the Romantic poets, especially Lord Byron, fascinated me. I am still a sucker for any book about Byron.


Here is Lord Byron’s recipe for Oyster Stew by way of Craig Claiborne.

Oyster Stew

4 tablespoons butter
1 finely minced onion
1/2 cup finely minced celery
1/4 cup finely minced green onion, green part and all
2 cups milk
2 cups cream
2 cups shucked oysters
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce (optional)
1 teaspoon Worcheshire sauce, or to taste
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

1. Heat the butter in a 2 quart saucepan and cook the onions and celery until the onion is translucent. Ass the green onion and cook, stirring one minute longer. Add milk and cream and bring barely to a boil.
2. Add the oysters and return just to the boil. When the oysters start to curl at the edges, which they should do almost immediately, remove the stew from the heat. Add the remaining ingredients and serve at once in hot plates. Serve with hot buttered toast.

One can see Claiborne's modern hand in the recipe.

Lord Byron died in 1824
Worcestershire Sauce was invented in 1837
Tabasco Sauce was invented in 1868.

I am sure if Byron had tasted either Tabasco or Worcestershire he would have used them in his stew.


Here's a bit of Byron's poetry from Don Juan: CANTO THE FOURTEENTH.

LXXXI

"An oyster may be cross'd in love" -- and why?

Because he mopeth idly in his shell,

And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,

Much as a monk may do within his cell:

And à-propos of monks, their piety

With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell;

Those vegetables of the Catholic creed

Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.