Terry
Shames writes the award-winning Samuel Craddock series. The fifth in the
series, The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake won the 2017 RT Reviews Critics Award for
Best Contemporary Mystery. Learn more about Terry and her books at her website
and blog, and be sure to check out the fabulous giveaway contest on Terry's Facebook author page.
Loretta Singletary
is an ongoing character in my Samuel Craddock series. She is a consummate baker
who is always bringing baked goods to her friends.
In my next
book, A Reckoning in the Back Country,
she goes away to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. This is a scene after her
return:
“I brought
something for you from my sister-in-law.” Loretta pulls out a cloth-wrapped
bundle and unwraps it. It’s a dark, heavy fruitcake cake full of nuts, the only
kind worth eating, as far as I’m concerned. “Isn’t that a beauty? My
sister-in-law makes a good fruitcake. Better than any I ever tried to make.”
“I’m sure
that’s not true.”
She snorts.
“It is. And she won’t tell me the secret ingredient.”
I reach out
to pinch off a piece and she slaps my hand away. “It will be ready to eat at
Christmas. You’re supposed to pour brandy over it once a week until then.”
“How much
brandy?”
She cocks
her head at me. “What do you mean ‘how much’?” Until it doesn’t absorb anymore.”
At the look on my face she says, “Never mind, I’ll keep it at my house and do
it myself and then I’ll bring it to you. But you have to pay for the brandy.”
“I’ll pay
for enough for my cake and yours, too.”
From A Reckoning in the Back Country, A
Samuel Craddock mystery coming January 9, 2018
What kind
of fruitcake has Loretta brought back home with her? The kind my grandmother
used to make! Dark and evil-looking, full of nuts and candied fruit. I loved it
and I still love it (maybe one of two people in the entire world who like
fruitcake). When I hear those mean jokes about fruitcake every year, I turn a
deaf ear.
The
surprise here, for those who know Loretta, is that she laces it with brandy.
She’s not much of a drinker. But fruitcake demands brandy. When I was a child,
my grandmother kept the fruitcakes she made in a pantry. It was a great treat
to me as a child to watch her pull out the cakes, unwrap them, and pour brandy
over them. Such a mysterious process.
It puzzled
me years ago when I first went looking for a good fruitcake recipe and couldn’t
find one that included that mysterious last step. So I improvised.
Here’s a
recipe I’ve used. Its original author (who claimed it was the best ever) has
faded into oblivion, but I’ve made enough changes in it to call it my own:
Unimaginably Great Fruit Cake (makes 2 cakes 12” x 4” x 3”)
Note: Make
this about a month before you plan to use it:
2 cups
golden raisins
2 cups dark
raisins
4 boxes
glaceed cherries, left whole
1 cup dried
pineapple, chopped
8 oz
chopped, glaceed fruit rinds
1 lb glaceed
dessert apricots,* diced or dried figs
1 cup
blanched almonds, sliced
1 cup
walnuts, coarsely chopped (original recipe calls for Brazil nuts)
3 cups flour
(I use a gluten-free flour and it works great)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp
baking soda
2 tsp
cinnamon
1 tsp
allspice
1 tsp
powdered nutmeg
1/2 tsp
powdered cloves
1/2 lb
butter, cut into small pieces
1-1/2 cup
dark brown sugar OR 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup molasses—don’t use blackstrap;
it’s too strong)
8 eggs
2 tsp
vanilla extract
1 cup brandy
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Butter and
flour loaf pans.
Toss the
fruits and nuts with one cup of the flour. Sift remaining flour with salt and
spices
Beat butter
until light and creamy. Beat in the sugar. Add in the eggs alternately with the
sifted flour mixture. Add vanilla and ½ c of the brandy. Fold this into the
fruits and nuts.
Spread into
the prepared cake pans and cover with oiled foil. Bake in 300 degree oven for 1
¼ hours. Remove foil and continue cooking for another 1 ¼ hours until the
center comes out clean. (Test after 2 total hours)
Cool the
cakes in pans for 15 minutes. Unmold onto a wire cooling rack. Pour ½ c brandy
over very slowly so it will absorb. Wrap tightly in cheesecloth and foil and
store in a cool place or in refrigerator.
Once a week
take off the foil and add more brandy.
*I think of
the apricots as the “secret” ingredient Loretta was referring to. But figs are
good, too.
A Reckoning in the Back Country (coming
January, 2018)
When Lewis Wilkins, a physician with a vacation
home in Jarrett Creek, is attacked and killed by vicious dogs, and several pet
dogs disappear, Police Chief Samuel Craddock suspects that a dog fighting ring
is operating in his territory. He has to tread carefully in his investigation,
as the lives of lawmen who meddle in dog fighting are at risk.
Digging deeper, Craddock discovers that the public
face Wilkins presented was at odds with his private actions. A terrible mistake
led to his disgrace as a physician, and far from being a stranger, he is
acquainted with a number of county residents who play fast and loose with
gambling laws.
Craddock’s focus on the
investigation is complicated by a new woman in his life, as well as his
accidental acquisition of a puppy.
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