“Don’t make that one,” our daughter Gaye said. “No one likes it.”
We were discussing the dessert cake I would make for visitors to our house after we had eaten dinner at a restaurant.
“Mrs. Hammond likes it,” I answered, “because she has asked for the recipe.”
We were talking about a Japanese Fruitcake, and I grant that Gaye is correct when, at Christmas time, it is sitting between a caramel cake and a fresh coconut cake, the Japanese Fruitcake is the third chosen. It’s a good cake though, but I don’t know where it gets its name, because the only fruits in it are coconut and lemons – none of the candied cherries, citron, etc., usually associated with Christmastime fruitcake.
Mrs. Jo Hammond had written in November (yes, November), asking for the recipe, and her letter got lost in “the stack” – so here I am with apologies.
Jo Hammond
Jo is a member of Spring Branch Baptist Church in Nichols. Paul Alverson Jr. is the current transitional pastor, and the church is in Waccamaw Baptist Association. A small to medium church, they average around 88 in Sunday school, Jo said.
She has been a member of Spring Branch since she married in 1948. Her late husband, Thelbert Hammond, died in 1989, and since then Jo has lived alone.
She has always had a role in the church program. For about 10 years or so, she taught the Junior Class in Sunday school, then spent another 10 years with the nursery group. She also served on the church’s social committee and enjoyed that.
Now, at 83, she doesn’t do as much. She attends Sunday school and church, and she and a group of friends regularly go out for lunch or dinner. She formerly enjoyed doing various crafts, but doesn’t do much of that now.
Her mother used to make a Japanese Fruitcake, she said, but without a recipe. The times Jo tried to make the cake, her relatives were quick to say that “it doesn’t taste like Mother’s.”
Maybe this one will, and she (and you) can bake this one Saturday and have it all ready and waiting for … Sunday Dinner.
Japanese Fruitcake
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 cups all-purpose or cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon each of ground allspice, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, cocoa
Grease and line with waxed paper three 9-inch cake pans.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift flour. Measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Set aside.
Separate egg yolks and whites. Beat whites until soft peaks form. Set aside.
Cream butter until soft. Gradually add the sugar, beating until well creamed with the butter. Add the egg yolks and beat until well blended. Add vanilla flavoring and mix. The butter-sugar-egg beating should take about 8 to 10 minutes.
Gradually add the flour alternately with the milk. Remove mixer beaters and fold in the egg whites. (If you prefer, don’t separate the eggs, but add them one at a time to the butter-sugar mixture.)
Divide the batter into thirds, placing ⅓ in each of two of the prepared pans. To the remaining ⅓ batter, add the allspice, cinnamon, cloves and cocoa, and mix well. Add to the third prepared pan.
Bake about 30-35 minutes until the layers test done. Put together with the frosting below, placing the spice-cocoa layer in the middle.
This frosting is more of a glaze than a frosting. Spread it between the three layers and on top, letting it run down the sides, or use it to frost the sides also.
Frosting/Glaze
1 fresh coconut, grated, or 2 6-oz. packages frozen coconut
2 whole lemons, grated (using both juice and rind)
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup boiling water
Combine in a sauce pot and cook until thickened and clear.