h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Foolproof Fruit Cake - A796043
Author: Toccata - U179952

A796043 - 'Foolproof Fruit Cake' written by Toccata, U179952

A recipe my Mum & I have been using for years.

Would anybody like to comment?

I would indeed. I love fruit cake!

"It will keep for a week or so in a tin, and can be 'spiked' with brandy or whatever you fancy before being covered in marzipan and icing for Christmas."

Fruit cakes actually get better the longer you leave them - so they will keep for a lot longer than a week. The best time to make a cake like this is at least two months before you want to eat it. Wrap it in silver foil and put it in an airtight container and it will mature.

The brandy can be cooked 'with' the cake by adding it to the mixture before it goes in the oven. Although some people say that it evaporates in the heat, I haven't found that it does. And then I add some after anyway. You might beed to explain what 'spiked' with brandy means.



Have you seen the entry on xmas cake already in the Guide? A663617

I've never had one hang around longer than a day or so, sometimes it doesn't get the chance to even cool down

This makes quite a moist cake, not quite as heavy as the traditional fruitcake. In all honesty, I don't know if it will keep as long, I shall have to do some research....

The cooking will evaporate the alcohol, but leave the flavour, but certainly no harm in adding more. A good point about explaining the spiking, I shall add that soonish.

I have seen the traditional Christmas Cake recipe, but thought there maybe space in the guide for a less daunting version. I enjoy the fuss and involvement of making a serious cake for Christmas, but there are times when its just easier to churn out a quick cake.

Hi Toccata,

I like your point there about making an easy fruit cake if you're too impatient to wait. That previous post there would make a good introduction to the entry with a bit of rewriting.

Try, if you can, to avoid saying 'I' (as in 'I made this once') and instead try 'You might want to make this'.

I'm a great believer in using footnotes only if the text can't be included in the sentence itself. Maybe you could try popping those footnotes back into the entry inside brackets or something - it'll make the entry look a bit bigger if nothing else

As Mina mentioned, there's already an entry on Christmas Cake in the edited Guide. Have a peak it it and see if there's anything more you can explain to make your entry that little bit different. As I said before, your approach to this as being a *quick* recipe for a *quick* cake is probably the way to go.

In fact, that might be a nice title for the entry actually - 'A Quick Recipe for a Quick Fruit Cake'. Having proven many 'foolproof' recipes wrong in the past, I always find it never hurts to overestimate your readers' ability to mess things up

Feel free to ignore or incorporate all or any of this as you please. I'm just trying to *talk* about cake so I'm not tempted to EAT it...

Darn it - didn't work.



Jimster

I do have a habit of expecting folk to know what I'm talking about, so I shall attempt to make it a bit more profesional

I shall try to make the changes over the weekend.

By the way - how do you spike a fruit cake with booze after it's been baked? I can't imagine how it might be done with something as relatively dry and as dense as a Dundee cake.

Well there's always my own method - you take a bite of cake and then take a slug of brandy. Mmmm...


Whadda yer mean that's not the recipe?!

Nice method though

You take a Skewer and insert it into the cake about a dozen times in an evenely spaced pattern. Then you pour a tablespoon or two of brandy over the surface of the cake. It is wrapped up in tin foil and left for a few days, then more alcohol is pured over, and it is wrapped up and put away again. It can be given several doses, depending on preference, and wether you have any brandy left.

Mina is right, I will have to add instructions

Well That's the next draft, what do folk think?

Looks pretty good to me!

Unfortunately, Smileys aren't allowed in Edited Guide Entries, and neither are links to unedited entries like the Village de la Vavoom one. So the Edited version of this will probably look less colourful than this version does - but it'll still make a useful addition to the Guide!

Oh I hadn't realised that

This is my first attempt at an edited entry, do I have to take that out, or will the unsuitable bits be removed in the editing process?

They would be removed in the editing process. But you could save the sub-editors and editors a job!

Wow !

Well, are the cakes you prepare more delicious than the 'Bombay Bakery Cakes' of Hyderabad (Sindh) Pakistan?

Yours truely,

A.R.Shams
the author of the "Creative Living Spirit" series of messages...

Hmm not tried 'bombay cakes'

Well, those are the smileys removed.

Any more for anymore?

Toccata

It's delicious. It's nutritious. It's going in to the Edited Guide.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Well done Toccata!

Hi Toccata,

I'm sorry your tummy hurts! I guess in light of that this may not be the best time to try to get you to think about cake, but, I get to subedit this entry, and as I want to do as thorough a job as possible, I intend to bake it on Friday afternoon.

Two questions from going through the recipe already: what kind of sugar do you recommend? Is granulated sugar okay, or do you use caster? Or demerara? Or soft dark brown sugar? Or soft light brown sugar? I have access to any type (I love living at home! Its great!)
Secondly, '1htsp mixed spice' - one half teaspoon, or one heaped teaspoon?

Looking forward to eating this