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desserts Friendship cake AKA 30 day fruitcake

I started one last night with a personal recipe from a different forum. I also checked the web and it seems there's 100 different ways to make it.
 
Has anyone made one of these?
 
Here's the recipe.
Ingredients:

1 packet of yeast or a pint jar of some friends starter, which is the leftover juice from the process.
2 cups of warm (not hot) water to activate the yeast if needed
4 cups regular sugar
1 large can (15 oz) of fruit cocktail
1 large can (15 oz) of diced peaches
1 large can (15 oz) crushed pineapple
1 8 oz can of jar of maraschino cherries
1 large can of any other fruit you choose
1 standard yellow cake mix - moist is recommended
2 cups dried raisins
1 or 2 cups of the nuts of your choice

Do not drain any of the canned fruit. Stir only with non-metallic instruments

Begin with two cups of the sugar, yeast, and the fruit cocktail and put them into a glass container. Combine and stir with a non metal instrument daily for the first week.

Add the peaches and another cup of sugar and stir daily for the next 7 days.

Add the Pineapple and another cup of sugar and stir daily for the next 7 days.

Add the maraschino cherries and any other fruit you choose, and stir daily for the next 7 days.

Now add the English Walnuts and any other fruits or nuts you choose and stir daily for the next 3 to 4 days.

Your "mix" should have taken on a distinctly "wine" aroma. If this happens, you are right on track.

Saving the liquid, and using a colander or non-metallic strainer of your choice, drain the entire mixture to separate the fruit from the juice.

Now, all the final ingredients are ready.

With one cup of the "juice" and two cups of the fruit, add them to one standard box of "Moist Yellow Cake Mix". Stir together to achieve a good mix and pour into a well greased Bunt cake pan and bake in a preheated 350F oven for 45 min to one hour or until a test toothpick or skewer shows it to be done (comes back dry). Cool and enjoy. It can be sliced or chunked and frozen for storage. Freezer time had been tested by me to be at least 12 months.

It is not that "brick" most folks have against "Fruit Cake". It is light and fruity and sweet and will please the most critical of appetites.

The extra liquid can be refrigerated (not frozen) for next year or used for additional cakes. We usually get about three cakes out of each recipe. If you use the liquid which most of us call a "starter", then all you have to add is the fruit and sugar. Refrigerated leftover liquid doesn't seem to kill the yeast. 

You can adjust the amounts of the fruits added to this recipe. It's all about allowing the yeast to ferment the fruit and make alcohol with the sugar. The alcohol is boiled off during the baking, but the flavors remain.
 
I started the ferment last night
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Here's this morning, it looks like the yeast is working.
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I added the 2nd can of fruit and sugar last night and it's foaming good this morning. It smells like cheap wine.
 
I'm also making a few jugs of wine since I'm playing around with this.
 
This is the cake ferment and a blackberry and cranberry wine I started 2 days ago.
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A few more jugs I started on the 29th. That apple does want to ferment, Old Orchard must have something in it to stop fermentation but the Welsh's is rolling along.
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It's day 14 of the  cake and I just added more sugar and a can of pineapple. That jar is starting to get full.
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I also started a persimmon wine, it's at day 4 and I have to push the pulp down twice a day because the gas pushes it to the top.
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All of the other wines are still going too, it's just a waiting game now.
 
 
 
 
Rajun Gardener said:
 
I also started a persimmon wine, it's at day 4 and I have to push the pulp down twice a day because the gas pushes it to the top.
 
All of the other wines are still going too, it's just a waiting game now.
 
 
 
WOW! My older brother is an amateur winemaker who likes working with non-grape fruits. He's also a "cement-head" who found a persimmon tree on one of his job sites a few years back & brought back a load of super ripe persimmons. That wine was some of the very best he ever made. We drank it as an ice wine.
 
nmlarson said:
WOW! My older brother is an amateur winemaker who likes working with non-grape fruits. He's also a "cement-head" who found a persimmon tree on one of his job sites a few years back & brought back a load of super ripe persimmons. That wine was some of the very best he ever made. We drank it as an ice wine.
 
I've been reading about the persimmon wine, it seems everyone loved it and claim it's some of the best they made. This started with a 1 gallon batch but now I'm gonna make 5 gallons after they finish ripening.
 
Here's day 12 on the wine, 4 days after racking. It's still actively fermenting and I'm surprised how much gunk is settling.
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It's day 21 of the Frindship cake and I just added the cherries and a can of mixed fruit(pineapple, cherries, white grapes and pears). It still has that HOBO wine smell<=no offense to any Hobo's :liar:
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I'm cheating with the recipe. I threw in the walnuts today so I can make a cake for Turkey day. It's like a cheap wine and the nuts should soak some of that up. Here it is before stirring.
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After a good stir, the yeast is still working
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The persimmon wine is clearing nicely, it's hard to believe it's this color compared to the orange persimmon flesh.
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The yeast is still eating and shitting alcohol, I tasted some for breakfast and it has a strong alcohol flavor that should mellow with a month of aging. It's amazing to see the yeast floating to the top then dropping back down only to eat again and repeat the process. It shouldn't be long before they all die off from the alcohol content and no more sugar to eat.
Lights off with no flash, swimmers everywhere!!!
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Using the flash
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Merry Thanksgiving Everybody!!!
 
If this thing doesn't happen faster it will be Enemies cake...
 
I cut 4 days off of it, isn't that enough? It's supposed to be a 30 day cake and that's just to make the starter.
 
I need to make a fruitcake next for Christmas. Not one of those dried bricks you get as a re-gift from last year. 
 
I also started 4 gallons of strawberry wine a few days ago, it smells awesome already!!! :party:
 
I have a cranberry and blackberry going too just for kicks! :cheers:
 
This was the first cakes I baked. They were good but a little soggy/moist so I re-baked them and it came out much better.
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Last night I played with the ingredients again land it came out perfect to my taste. It's not as sweet and more dense but has excellent flavor.
 
I used one box of yellow cake mix and added one cup of flour and one teaspoon of baking powder. The wet ingredients were two cups of the fruits, 1/2 cup of the starter liquid, one egg, one tbsp of vanilla extract, one tsp of cinnamon. Mixed and filled two disposable aluminum pans and baked at 250 for three hours then turned the oven off and let it cool till this morning.
 
Perfect coffee cake for breakfast.
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