You're such a fruit cake!

While this phrase has negative connotations for most of us when in the school yard as a young child, the mighty fruit cake is frighteningly durable and packed full of yummy fruits soaked in rum, orange and lemon juices. The fruit cake is a traditional English dish and usually makes up the top layer of a wedding cake. The top layer is suppose to be eaten at the christening of your first child. If anyone is keeping count thats a cake that can withstand at least 9 months sitting in a tin on the counter. I hope everyone is making their 'eww gross face' right now, because I am just typing this description out. "Chef", one of the students in my class shouted in my demonstrations class, "how long could a fruit cake last all-in-all?", chef responded with, "if it is wrapped properly then just sitting on the counter it should last about 2-3 years"...'uhhhhhh, ewww, yuck!' my class said in unison. It seems that all that would be left after a world disaster are the cockroaches and the fruitcakes. Needless to say I was not super excited to wake up at the crack of dawn this morning to make this timeless dessert. I finally peeled myself out of bed, threw on my chef whites and Ugg boots, then I was off to catch the bus for class with the Arctic breeze piercing against my face. Once I got into class we had to measure out all of our dried fruits, fruit zest, juice, spices, and rum...lots of rum...did I mention there was rum? We put all of it into a pot and cooked it slowly so that all the fruit would absorb the fruit juice and rum, just imagine the vapors coming off of 9 pots of that stuff. Just one step into the boulangerie this morning and you would have been feeling quite good for 8:00am. Our room smelled like a rum raisin cocktail and a strong one at that. One of the girls in my class compared it to being in a steam room with vodka instead of water...I'm going to take her word for it, seeing as that is something I have never experienced.

Meanwhile we also made the Savarin aux Fruits avec Creme Chantilly, a donut shaped cake filled with creme and cut fruits in the center. Oh, and guess what?! Its also soaked in R-U-M, infused with lemon and orange zest, cardamom pods, and bay leaves. I was just praying not to set anything on fire today with so much alcohol being around our gas burners.

The cooking of everything went beautifully, except I forgot to alternate adding my eggs and flour to my fruit cake. It turned out fine though. The cutting of my fruit was "lovely and the arrangement of my fruits had great movement". With a highly critical chef critiquing your every move, I was quite happy with the results of my day.

They are a little hard to see, but if you look closely you can see the two strawberries on top that I cut to look like little swans. 

Now for the fun part! Once our fruit cakes finish baking (which takes a majority of the day by the way) I have to go in to school every other day for the next 8-10 weeks to soak the cake in...can you guess?...more rum. It is suppose to be delicious, but I have my doubts. I know that everyone will be just hanging off the edge of their seats for the next two months to see how it turns out. In fact since it last so long some of you might even get to try it for yourself.