[Sca-cooks] Pork Fruitcake - Is This a Joke?

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

I don't know about that... the total volume of substance in these loaves 
will be significant and the loaves will be very dense.  The pork in the 
very center may or may not end up cooked sufficiently.  Yes, it's only 6 
oz. of pork per loaf.  But, if four of those ounces are in a portion of 
the loaf that doesn't reach a safe temperature, you've got trouble.

That said, I've been experimenting with roasting chickens at low temps 
for long times, on the advice of the farm where I buy them.  I put one 
in last week at 200 degrees and expected it to take about 6-7 hours.  I 
checked the temp at 6 hours, and it was 203 degrees and the chicken just 
fell apart.  I think 5 hours would have been sufficient, and next time 
I'll remember to put my electronic thermometer in at the start of the 
process ;)

So, two hours at 275 degrees may well be plenty of time.  There is only 
one way to find out - make it and keep tabs on the internal temperature!

-Magdalena vander Brugghe

>As far as the low temp, I would think it would be
>fine.  I looked at the quantity of pork (1 1/5 lbs) to
>the quantity it makes- 4 loaves.  That is roughly 6 oz
>of meat per loaf.  Not like you are cooking meatloaf
>and have 1 1/2 lbs of meat in one pan.  Just my 2
>cents. 
>
>Alexa
> 
>--- Elise Fleming <alysk at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Greetings!  My daughter in San Francisco asked me
>>about a Pork Fruitcake
>>recipe she'd found.  I said I'd ask if any of you
>>had ever heard of such a
>>thing.  I wondered if it might have been based on
>>mincemeat, although with
>>boiling coffee...!  The boiling liquid would do a
>>little to help cook the
>>pork, but I wondered if such a low temperature even
>>for two hours would
>>suffice to fully cook it.  Any comments?  Anyone
>>want to try it??  FYI, I
>>will be unsubscribing (hopefully) by Tuesday.  I'll
>>be in England for five
>>weeks!
>>
>>>From the cookbook "125 Years of Favorites Old and
>>New, Vasa Lutheran Church 1855-1980", a 621 page
>>compendium by
>>Minnesotan Lutherans comes the treat Pork Fruit
>>Cake. It's in the section
>>called Food with a Foreign Flair.
>> 
>>Pork Fruit Cake by Carol Mitchener
>> 
>>1.5 lb ground pork
>>Pour 3 cups boiling coffee over pork and stir.
>> 
>>3 c brown sugar
>>2 lbs raisins
>>2 c nutmeats
>>1 lb currants
>>1 lb dates, cut fine(ly)
>>1 c citron
>>1 c lemon and orange peel
>>2 tsp soda
>>1 tsp allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt
>>6-7 c flour
>> 
>>Put into 4 bread pans. Bake at 275 degrees for
>>approximately 2 hours.
>> 
>>Alys Katharine
>>
>>Elise Fleming
>>alysk at ix.netcom.com
>>http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/
>>    
>>



-- 
Tara Sersen Boroson

'Normal' is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. -Ellen Goodman

[T]o admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. -Virginia Woolf