digby's fruitcake was Re: SC - Cheesecake judgingLaurels/Competitions

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote:
> 
> hey all from Anne-Marie
> Adamantius tells us:
> I finally did one ship, just under three feet
> >long, sailing between small islands made of single-serving cakes of the
> >same Digby fruitcake. Yes, Anne-Marie, that fruitcake. Did you know
> >Digby's uncut recipe just fits into a hand-made ship-shaped cake pan
> >just under three feet long? (We need to talk about that ale-yeast, BTW ;
> > )  )
> 
> do tell! :) did you try the ale yeast? did it make any difference at all?

The little single-serving cakes rose like brioche after a while. Longer
than half an hour, but I noticed, as I had enough little muffin-tins for
maybe eighteen at a time, that as I approached the middle-to-end of the
batch, a distinct difference between those made at the top of the pile
of dough, and the bottom. (I was scooping them up with a number three
ice-cream scoop, kneading _very_ softly, and plunking them into muffin
tins.) I think perhaps if you had a really good fermentation of properly
aspirated ale yeast at a stage of what German brewers might call "hoch
kruezen", essentially when the yeast begins to really get down to the
business of fermenting, extruding tentacles and grabbing and digesting
anything in its path like The Blob, you might get a product somewhat
lighter than a cookie dough after half an hour, particularly if it's
proofed in a sufficiently warm place. Not that a simple gluten rest
doesn't help, too, in that same time frame.

I love having a stove with pilot lights again, after some eleven years
with spark plugs... 
> 
> yay for trying the different icings. most cool.
> 
> I dont suppose you could post photos?

I'll see if I can find some, and carefully crop them for presence of any
offending cooks. We brought a camera to the event, but it seems my lady
wife absconded with it for taking pictures of one of our dearest
friends' peerage ceremony, myself speaking as one of the Worthies, and
other arguably extraneous subject matter. Photos were taken, though, and
I'll see if I can track them down. 

> --AM, who thinks that the fruitcake abstaining judges missed out something
> fierce. Regular fruitcake is a waste of perfectly good booze....this
> particular cake rocks the free world.

Indeed it does. In my darker moments, as I became more intimate with
this cake recipe than I may want to in the near future, I feared a
resemblance to every supermarket's generic "iced spice cookies"
(something about the icing), but when fresh, it is infinitely more
aromatic and rich, and by the light of day wiser counsel prevails.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com