FRUIT CAKE – It’s Good At Thanksgiving TOO!

This is the story of Kim’s Secret Fruit Cake Recipe – that took fruit cake jokes out of the joke category and put them at the top of the desired deserts list for holidays.  You will absolutely LOVE this fruit cake and be making them and giving them away as gifts.  Yes you will!!!

SO – Cakes and Pies – Cookies and homemade candy – OH MY!  And then there’s Fruit Cakes! It’s the time of year that most homemakers start doing more baking than usual and spend a little more time in the kitchen.

I practically LIVE in our kitchen when I’m not doing other chores because I just absolutely love to cook and bake.

But today we’re talking about Fruit Cakes and in particular – Kim’s Almost famous Fruit Cake Recipe which she created on her own at about age 12.

The trick to making fruit cakes that will go over like handing out $100 bills – is to make it from scratch and throw out the ideas of alcohol and other negative ingredients that give classic fruit cakes that yucky bite –  and put in ONLY those foods and ingredients which you would consider delicious and almost good enough to die for.  For instance – Kim substitutes the rum and brandy that’s often in these recipes – with canned milk.  And BINGO!!!  Added smoothness to your fruit cake and you can still stand up and talk about it after you eat it.  Baking is an art – and we should never take it lightly.

Kim’s First Fruit Cakes

I can’t even remember how Kim came to make her first fruit cake.  She was only about 12 years old – and in her younger days – cooking and baking was just about her favorite thing to do.  It was nothing to go in the kitchen – which I expected to find orderly and shining like it was on a home tour – only to find Kim knee deep in flour – with flour splattered from her head to her feet and all around the side of the kitchen she was working on.  And she’d be like Little Miss Sunshine – in her kitchen – in her glory – baking away.

Kim has always loved experimenting in the kitchen – still does when she can find the time.  But back then she was just a little girl with no real schedule and a desire to be the next Betty Crocker.  She even entered a Paducah Sun (newspaper) baking contest when she was 12 years old and won and she was the only one in the contest under 40.  And she had made her Peanut Butter Ice Cream Pie all by herself.  She was thrilled beyond explanation.

One day Kim was making Fruit Cakes and she made two extra ones (regular loaf size) – for her dad to take to work for a plant ‘feed’.  And she ended up with a bucket full of requests for her fruit cake recipe and several just wanted her to make them one.  🙂   She made something like 17  fruit cakes that year – just to give away and she was only a little girl.

But let’s get to the recipe – I know you’re just itchin’ to try it yourself.  And the real secret to her recipe – is to have just enough batter to hold all the nuts and fruit together.  Once you make this fruit cake you’ll be baking it for the rest of your life.  You’ll be looking for reasons to bake fruit cake. 🙂

Yesterday – knowing we were about to do this blog and recipe – I gathered up the supplies at the kitchen table and just put a batch of this together so we could have photo’s for you today.  Now this recipe will fill about 5 of the little aluminum tins you buy in the bundle at Walmart – but while I was gone to get the memory card out of the computer and put it in the camera – the Geezer ate one of these fruit cakes.  SO we have 4 in the photo.  You can make them a little higher by putting more dough into the little tin’s when done – you will just have fewer little fruit cakes.  But get ready 🙂  because we’ll be making tons of these in the next 2 weeks and knocking on doors – not selling them, mind you – but giving them away to friends and family.

Fruit Cake – Kim’s Almost Famous Recipe

Kim’s Secret Fruit Cake Recipe – is no longer a secret – and guess what?  The recipe is ADJUSTABLE!!!   WHAT???  An ADJUSTABLE FRUIT CAKE???  Yes – read on …

Kim’s Secret Fruit Cake Recipe

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 c light brown sugar

4 tbsp real butter – melted

1 tbsp molasses

3 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2 tbsp Karo light syrup

5 oz canned milk (and we use the Walmart generic evaporated milk – it has best flavor by far of any canned milk)

nuts, candied fruit, raisins – now on these – just add as much or little as you want – but the thing that made Kim’s fruit cakes so popular was that it was

MOSTLY – NUTS AND FRUIT AND RAISINS  .. LoL   There was only enough batter to hold those things together – but it made for a delicious fruit cake.

Now – it’s best to soak your candied fruit and raisins in just a little bit of hot water before you use them.  Otherwise you’re going to have some rough and even hard bites in your cake every now and then.   That step is optional – but we soak our candied fruit and raisins.  If you do soak your candied fruit – scoop it out after about 15 minutes – leaving the liquid behind to toss away.

In a large bowl – combine the flour, baking powder, soda and stir well to mix.  First add the candied fruit and that stuff is high as a cats back – but we put the whole container of candied fruit in that one batch.  Put it into the flour mixture one handful at a time and mix well into the flour mixture so each piece of candied fruit gets coated with flour – that way the candied fruit won’t stick together.  Add one or two handfuls of raisins – according to your own families likes and then the nuts. For the nuts we use TONS of nuts.  Kim uses pecans, walnuts and almonds and she puts those into a gallon bag and crunches them  up with a hammer.  Now I’m sure most of you have one of those expensive chopping machines – but we do things simple and back to basics in the Comer Clan.  SO we just hammer them to a nice size and dump them into the flour and fruit mixture.

In a separate bowl – mix the melted butter – brown sugar, molasses, 2 eggs, karo syrup and canned milk.  WE mix the eggs in last so we can taste our mixture before adding the eggs (which shouldn’t be tasted raw) to see if we want to add anything else or more of this or that – because when you cook from scratch – you just know how to wing it and add or take away.  SO we add those things and do a taste test to see if we want more molasses or brown sugar or vanilla.

Slowly pour a little of the wet mixture into the big bowl of flour mix – and toss around as you continue adding the wet mixture.  If it’s still too dry when you get your wet mixture done – sprinkle 2-3-4 tbsps of hot water over the mixture to moisten even more.   I baked these yesterday at 400 for 30 minutes.  But all ovens vary and our stove is VERY old.  SO just put them in at 400 and after about 15-20 minutes just watch them closely.  When they turn a light brown – stick a toothpick in them and see if it comes out clean.  If it does – they’re done.

NOW – the adjustable thing about this IS – you can make it sweeter like a sweet fruit-nut cake by adding more sugar or brown sugar or molasses. OR you can make it more like a nut bread by adding LESS sugar, brown sugar or molasses.

This recipe is absolutely DELICIOUS and will fill 5 of those very small tin pans that come in a combo group at Walmart.   We absolutely LOVE cooking and baking from scratch in Round Knob Canyon and at House on Pooh Corner and we hope you do too.