Kentucky Whiskey Cake

Every year I make fruitcakes to give away to friends. After years of scoffing taunts about fruitcake, I make sure that these friends are worthy of the gift. Our friends, Katie and Joseph, have been among the recipients of my efforts. After Christmas, Katie wrote an especially lovely note of appreciation which I reproduce here .

OK, let's discuss fruitcake.  I am one of those (I guess?) rare people who really love it.  My beloved Aunt Carol, my mom's really fun younger sister, used to make it in about July, wrap it in cheesecloth, drench and soak it in some fabulous forbidden spirit, and wrap the whole mysterious loaf in colored tin foil.  We'd get it in the mail around Christmas, and my mom would already start sucking in her breath and rolling her eyes about it as she opened the box.  She'd unwrap it and slice off impossibly thin slices that she'd pass around.  It was so fume-y, so aromatic from the brandy or whatever, that the inside of your nose would wiggle.  The cake itself was an astounding dark, loamy color that looked perfectly ancient.  The fruit was transparent.  The whole thing held together by some kind of trust or bond, between the evolved flour, egg; perfectly normal ingredients, I'm sure, that had reverted back to some primordial state.  As it settled upon your tongue, it would melt apart into weirdly rubbery (not in a bad way) nuts, chewy fruit, and that batter.  My mother, a complete teetotaler, would polish off micro-slice after micro-slice (for gods sake, give this woman something to drink!) as she exclaimed that it was the best year ever, sniffing inconspicuously at the damp, weathered cheesecloth.  As I opened your lovely fruitcake (we had waited very impatiently until January 1st as you instructed), all of those years of Aunt Carol's came rushing back in what is actually a very happy memory for me.  I'm not sure I mastered the micro-slicing, however.  Sadly, we ate the last of it tonight.  Thank you for carrying on this amazing, maybe medieval, unfairly scorned at, tradition!  love Katie

Aside from her thanks, which I gobbled almost as greedily as she ate the fruitcake, I love the associations that she has with this food. Love and family, which don't always go together, being chief among her memories. I know that when I cook a dish that is one of Hallie's particular favorites, I am consciously trying to create food memories for her. Whatever life may dish out, I hope that some of these meals have created a memory of a time when she was cosseted and cared for , warm and comfortable, loved and cherished.

One of the cakes I made this year is an "Original Kentucky Whiskey Cake" from My Mother's Southern Kitchen by James Villas. This cake should season at least a week before you eat it, but it is more than worth the wait. This year I mixed the fruits and the batter with a mixer instead of by hand. That change had the effect of making the cake a very Christmasy pink. We liked the results of this accident. Maybe we can replicate it next year.

KENTUCKY WHISKEY CAKE

1. 1 pound candied cherries halved
2. 1/2 pound seedless golden raisins
3. 2 cups bourbon
4. 1 1/2 cups ( 3 sticks) butter, at room temperature
5. 2 cups granulated sugar
6. 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
7. 6 large eggs, separated
8. 5 cups all-purpose flour
9. 1 pound chopped pecans
10. 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
11. 1 teaspoon baking powder

In a bowl, combine the cherries, raisins, and bourbon and let soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and two sugars together with an electric mixer till fluffy, then add the egg yolks and beat well. Stir in the soaked fruit and bourbon. In a bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the flour with the pecans and set aside. Add the remaining flour, nutmeg, and baking powder to the creamed mixture and mix well. In a bowl beat the egg whites with an electric mixer till stiff peaks form and fold them into the mixture Add the floured pecans and fold gently.

Grease a 10-inch tube pan and line it with greased brown paper or waxed paper.* Pour the batter into the pan, "spank" the bottom to distribute the batter evenly, and bake till a straw inserted into the cake coms out clean, 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Cool the cake, turn it out of the pan, peel off the brown paper and store in a tightly covered container about 1 week before serving.

I used two loaf pans which worked very well.
 

Comments

[pt]

Your Kentucky Whiskey Cake recipe looks like a good one so I've copied. Your site is lovely and the photos great. Wonderful presentation. Shall return again soon. Thank you for sharing, Cheers, PT
You can visit me at http://ptsaldari.posterous.com