It’s holiday baking time. You should make a fruitcake. Yes, yes, I know. Fruitcake gets a bad rap. But this one is good, and doesn’t have the weird neon colored fruit things like cheap lousy store-bought fruitcakes. This version is adapted from Alton Brown’s recipe. Now, there are some crazy complicated fruitcake recipes out there, but this isn’t one of them. This one is pretty uncomplicated and easy to do, and the crapload of dried fruit in it will keep you from getting scurvy during the long winter. For this recipe, there are three basic preparation stages: rehydrating the dried fruit; cooking the fruit in juice, and spices; and then the final assembly and baking. If you don’t have a lot of time, this is a good holiday recipe for you, since you can do one or both of the preliminary stages and save the baking for another day.
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