fruit cake - with a German heritage

[longspurr]

How do you bake a 3 to 4 tonne fruitcake?? And do you need a Arnold Schwarzenegger stand in to wield a 1.6 meter knife?

Stollen is a fruit cake containing dried fruit and often marzipan and covered with sugar, powdered sugar or icing sugar. The cake is usually made with chopped candied fruit and/or dried fruit, nuts and spices. Stollen is a traditional German cake of Jewish origin, usually eaten during the Hanukkah and Christmas seasons, when it is called Weihnachtsstollen (after "Weihnachten") or Christstollen (after Christ) as well as Winserbrott (winter bread) when eaten during Jewish festivities, as it foreshadows the coming of winter.

Stollen is a bread-like fruit cake made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Candied orange peel and candied citrus peel (Zitronat),[1] raisins and almonds, and different spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs,[2] vanilla,[3] other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan may also be added to the dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished cake is sprinkled with icing sugar. The traditional weight of Stollen is around 4.4 kg (9.7 lb)

Today, the festival takes place on the Saturday before the second Sunday in Advent, and the cake weighs between three and four tonnes. A carriage takes the cake in a parade through the streets of Dresden to the Christmas market, where it is ceremoniously cut into pieces and distributed among the crowd, for a small sum which goes to charity. A special knife, the Grand Dresden Stollen Knife, a silver-plated knife, 1.60 meters long weighing 12 kg, which is a copy of the lost baroque original knife from 1730, is used to festively cut the oversize Stollen at the Dresden Christmas fair.[8]

 

[Ruger1441]

Looked at the title and though you were talking about me :D

 

[toysoldier]

I'm part of the minority that likes fruitcake, but that's a little much even for me. :wink:

 

[SAJohn]

Which will spoil first, a fruitcake, a Twinky, or Mac fries?

This is a trick question as no one has lived long enough to find out the answer. :)

 

[Fox Mike]

I'm part of the minority that likes fruitcake, but that's a little much even for me. :wink:

I too happen to like it. But then I also ate the "ham and egg" C rations so that should tell you about my eating habits. If it don't eat me first it is edible.

 

[Colonialgirl]

I'm part of the minority that likes fruitcake, but that's a little much even for me. :wink:

I aint never spoke up, BUT I like Fruit cake too; Especially the ones my uncle use to make that were RUM soaked !! :shock: :shock: :roll: :roll: :roll: :wink:

 

[Colonialgirl]

I'm part of the minority that likes fruitcake, but that's a little much even for me. :wink:

I too happen to like it. But then I also ate the "ham and egg" C rations so that should tell you about my eating habits. If it don't eat me first it is edible.

As long as it wasn't the Lima Beans and Ham C-'rats you're still okay in my book. Ony person in my outfit that would eat the Lima beans was the guy from the back hills of TN. He use to talk about hooking up the mule and plowing the back 20 acres. :roll: :roll:

 

[exavid]

My grandmother used to make Rhum Toph which is a rather rummy way to preserve fruit and a topping for cake. She'd put rum and fruit in the thing for months then use the stuff for topping on a pound cake. We kids were allowed to have a wee bit but not much. I think it was a bit heavy in rum because it always made the adults happy.

http://www.germandeli.com/Information/Recipe-for-Rumtopf/

 

[Rick Courtright]

Which will spoil first, a fruitcake, a Twinky, or Mac fries?

Hi,

I was gonna say fruitcake simply because of the proportion of natural ingredients, i.e. something we'd recognize as food just on its face!

But maybe not: I have a client from Trinidad who gave me a piece of a fruitcake they make down there she called "10 year fruitcake" or something like that. It starts life pretty much as a standard fruitcake with a couple of local substitutions for the fruit. Then it's "treated" with rum in small quantities over an extended period of time (12 months sticks in my head.) Unlike my grandmother's rum balls that would about knock you over when you unwrapped them (and the limit for us kids was one!), this stuff has all the rum flavor, but much of the alcohol has evaporated.

Dunno how long it may really last. She said it might have gotten the name not cuz it lasts a minimum 10 years, but that was the longest anyone had managed to keep one hidden so it didn't disappear in a big hurry!

Rick C

 

[Colonel Daddy]

Another minority here! Tho I haven't tried the particular fruitcake mentioned above. About the only ones I would ever eat are the ones sold years ago by A&P under the 'Jane Parker' brand and then my mothers fruitcake. She worked for hours making that cake but never did it have alcohol added to it! Finally, after all these years my wife used my late mothers recipe and together WE made Mom's special fruitcake!

 

[jrod]

I'm part of the minority that likes fruitcake, but that's a little much even for me. :wink:

I too happen to like it. But then I also ate the "ham and egg" C rations so that should tell you about my eating habits. If it don't eat me first it is edible.

Ham & Egg C-Rats were my favorite as well! Brought back memories...