Brandied fruit anyone...

 

I found this recipe for Friendship Fruit Cake (plus Starter Recipe) from South Your Mouth awhile back.  My mother used to make it in the very jar shown in photo above.  (You don't want it in a jar with tight seal, as it needs to be able to breathe while it ferments.)  I never had the recipe though.  Mom received a starter from our neighbor, Dorothy, who called it Brandied Fruit.  

(Can I just insert here that I grew up in the best neighborhood ever?  All the neighbors were like aunts and great-aunts, and my best friend lived right across the street.  My parents bought the house before I was born, and I ended up having to sell it after they passed.  Not many people spend their entire growing up in one house anymore, my own kids included.)

Maybe my mom never had the recipe either.  Maybe she only continued making it while she had a starter and verbal instructions from Dorothy.  I don't remember Mom ever making cake with it, we always ate it as a topping on vanilla ice cream or Mom's fabulous from scratch  pound cake.

Anyway, the spirit moved me to give it a try.  The recipe is a little confusing as in one section it tells you to drain all the fruit and add all of it plus the 1 1/4 cup sugar and 1 1/4 cup brandy to the jar at one time, and stir it 2 to 3 times a week with no hint when it is ready.

The next instruction tells you to place the starter liquid in a jar, add 1 a can of peaches WITH the juice and 2 cups of sugar, cover the jar loosely, and stir daily for 10 days.  Only then do you add a can of pineapple chunks WITH juice and 2 MORE cups of sugar, and stir daily for 10 more days.  After that 10 days you add a jar of Maraschino cherries and 2 MORE cups of sugar and stir for 10 more days.  Then it is apparently ready to use.  (And though the ingredient list includes canned apricots, it never mentions when those are supposed to be added.)

Well I don't remember this jar ever having a ton of liquid in it, so I thought I'd start with the version where you dump the drained fruit with 1 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 1/4 cup of brandy in and stir 2 or 3 times a week.  (Oh, I also didn't have brandy, but I did have bourbon so I used it.)

So we'll see how it goes, and I'll keep you posted.