OCR Text |
Show r A - " V N Make Your Fruit Cakes, ! Plum Puddings in Time For Leisurely Ripening BEFORE YOU GET CAUGHT In the crush of holiday shopping or tangled in festive tinsel and wrapping, give a thought to your fruit cakes and plum puddings. These should be made at least a Ij f .. month or more ' f ' before the holi- !Ly" k l days 4 0 give lMhljlJ them time to Py-i 4fl A riper, and mel-tiifecL'y" mel-tiifecL'y" lw so their l?3?? flavors will be Vii V-fCNaaEc-; perfect. It's a comforting comfort-ing thought, too, many homemakers homemak-ers have found in years past, to have their Christmas desserts all snugly wrapped, ready to be eaten well In advance of all the other holiday food preparation. In case you want to give away fruit cake' and plum pudding as presents with "warmest regards" from your own kitchen, decide exactly ex-actly who will be the lucky receivers, re-ceivers, and plan accordingly. PLAN TWO DAYS for making your fruit cake. The first day is usually spent ordering the fruits and nuts and getting them ready, along with lining the pans with paper. The second day is spent mixing and baking, as well as decorating dec-orating and wrapping the cakes for storage. Horn of Plenty Fruit Cake (Makes 5 pounds) 2H caps golden raisins 1 cup dried apricots 1H cups sliced citron 1 cup cut candied pineapple 1 cup halved candied cherries cher-ries 1 cup shredded coconut H cup apricot whole fruit nectar 1 teaspoons nutmeg 2 teaspoons mace Yi teaspoon cinnamon cup thick orange marmalade marma-lade 1 cup butter or substitute 1 cups granulated sugar 4 eggs Z'A cups sifted all-purpose flour 14 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 154 cups finely chopped blanched almonds Rinse raisins and drain. Pour boiling water over apricots and let stand five minutes. Cut into thin strips. Combine with raisins, citron, cit-ron, pineapple, cherries, coconut, nectar, spices and marmalade. Cover and let stand overnight. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat thoroughly. Add flour sifted with baking powder powd-er and salt and mix well. Blend in jl flavoring, a 1- f.;;;:..::;v: monds and fruit SjppSpigp mixture and mix ?jga&S8?gi well. Pour into ir, , tg? M two loaf pans -TfdlSj (8x4x3 inches) WMMMMMMM or one (9-inch) pan lined with two thicknesses thick-nesses of greased brown paper and one of waxed paper. Bake in a slow (275f.) oven 3 to 4 hours, depending de-pending upon size of cake. Decorate Decor-ate torj as desired. Plum puddings, like fruit cake, should be given a month or so to ripen before serving to taste their best. Here's a truly festive pudding with fruits, nuts and spices combined with suet, molasses and bread crumbs, LYNN CHAMBERS' MENU Chicken Chop Suey Fluffy Boiled Rice Buttered Green Peas Toasted Bread Sticks Molded Fruit Salad Beverage Canned Apricots Almond Cookies FOR THOSE who prefer a dark type of fruit cake, here is a recipe which gives excellent results: re-sults: Dark Fruit Cake (Makes 10 pounds) VA pounds candied cherries 1 pound candied pineapple 1 pounds candied apricots 1 pound citron 8 pounds seeded raisins 1 pound currants H pound raw, shelled almonds al-monds H pound (2 cups) sifted flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon cinnamon teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon nutmeg pound shortening pound brown sugar cups cider 6 eggs, separated Cut the cherries in halves. Thinly slice the pineapple, apricots and citron. Wash raisins and currants and dry them. Blanch and chop almonds. Mix all these ingredients together. Sift together flour, baking powder and spices. Combine fruit and flour mixtures thoroughly. Cream together shortening and sugar. Add egg yolks and beat thoroughly. thor-oughly. Add cider alternately with fruit mixture until all are thoroughly thorough-ly mixed. Beat egg whites stiff and fold into cake mixture. Line the bottoms of 4 pans (.SVi x 4 inches) with brown paper. Grease the paper and fill pans with cake mixture full. Place pans on a rack in a large roaster which has about inch of water at the bottom. Cover the pan and set in a slow (275f.) oven for 2Ms hours. Remove pans from roaster and set in oven, at same temperature,' for Vi hour to allow cake to dry. Plum Pudding (Makes 2 3-pound molds) f , , 6 j J , - . if y J t'. . . . i 1 pound seedless raisins 1 pound currants yt cup chopped nut meats 2'A cups sifted flour teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon allspice 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon cinnamon Z teaspoons salt 4 eggs 1 cup sugar 2 cups pure dark molasses 2 cups buttermilk l'A cups finely chopped suet A cup grape Juice ZVi cups fine, hard bread crumbs Wash and dry raisins and currants, cur-rants, combine with nutmeats. Dredge with one cup flour. Sift remaining re-maining flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Beat eggs, add crumbs, sugar, molasses, buttermilk, suet and grape juice. Add raisin mixture mix-ture and blend thoroughly. Add flour mixture; mix' thoroughly. Pour into two greased three-pound molds. Cover and steam for three hours. Cool puddings, wrap in heavy waxed paper and store In a cool place Re-steam to heat and serve with hard or other type sauce. Bake your fruit cakes In loaf pans or tube pans, whichever you like, but bake them early. Tien they'll have a chance to ripen properly before the holidays holi-days and taste their mellow best. This Horn of Plenty Fruit Cake, light in color, is packed with luscious candied and dried fruits, golden raisins, coconut and almonds. , LINN SAYS: Try These Tasty Seasoning Tricks Rice puiMing is an old-fashioned favorite, but it will have more flavor if you make it with brown in place of white sugar. Plump the raisins in hot water before adding to the rice. Spread toast with chutney before serving the welsh rarebit. Yes, it's different but interesting. t Baked pears become a favorite dessert when they're served with nutmeg flavored cream. Garnish your ham with steamed apples which have been molded in cider or lemon gelatin. The flavors flav-ors suit the ham perfectly. When you want to stuff a roast of pork or pork chops, you'll find that apples and prunes or raisins and apples have a wonderful flavor affinity to the pork. Minced pork sausage and rice mixed with egg, shaped into cake! and fried in the skillet, slowly and to a golden brown are a deliciously different dish to have for breakfast. |