Fruited Eggnog Pudding (Gluten Free)

Fruited Eggnog Pudding is definitely a day before recipe. It is not hard, but it takes time, as well as an impressive collection of liquor. It has to chill so the cook is much better off making it the evening before the dinner party, thereby ensuring peace of mind on that issue
I made it on Saturday afternoon for Sunday night's dinner, the same dinner that I made the grits balls for.
I was delighted to be using up several stray ingredients, such as dried fruit, left over from fruitcake making, chopped walnuts, just sitting in the refrigerator, golden raisins, (I used regular old brown.) and the booze. What I didn't do was check on the gelatin. When came time to dissolve the gelatin so it could be added to the eggs, etc., I was horrified to see that I only had one envelope when the recipe called for three. However, the time was getting on for 4 o'clock and I had to meet my husband Bob at 4:30, so I just said to hell with it and used one. Result, pudding less stand up than it would have been with three envelopes of gelatin.
I found the recipe contained many imponderables. For example, it says to beat the egg yolks until they are "very thick." and lemon yellow. How thick is very thick? Do the eggs have to look exactly like a lemon? I beat the yolks for about 5 minutes. They did thicken and showed the tracks of the beaters, but were not lemon yellow, mostly, I believe due to the fact that I use organic eggs. The yolks of organic eggs are a much deeper yellow than the yolks of non organic eggs. The color did lighten somewhat. I think 5 minutes is enough.
"Gradually beat in the sugar." What does that mean? Basically, it means not to dump the whole 3/4 cup into the egg yolks at the same time. You could spoon the sugar in, a couple of tablespoons at a time and beat for the count of 30 if you are a perfectionist.
It says use a nine cup mold that has been "lightly oiled." What is a nine cup mold and how does one lightly oil same? Well, in the 30s, 40s and 50s, molded salads and desserts were all the rage.

The molds of the past looked like this, a tin-lined melon mold. I used a large red bowl. To lightly oil it, I took a clean paper towel and soaked it with vegetable oil. I then rubbed the inside of the bowl with the oily paper towel. Since I did not have three envelopes of gelatin, it didn't matter anyway, since the pudding was somewhat soupy, and not as stand-up as it should have been.
Don't worry about  not having a mold, but if you would like one many of different sizes, types and designs are available on e-bay.
I also discovered one more shortage in the cooking process. The recipe calls for a cup of bourbon. We had about half a cup. Since we don't drink hard liquor much anymore, I was disinclined to go out and buy a fresh bottle of bourbon. Altogether, what I had added up to one and 1/4 cups of hard liquor, so I figured that would be enough. It was. In case you are not much of a drinker, but want to make this dessert, you can always buy little bottles, pints, or half pints for cooking.
The dessert turned out well. It may have been too much in a meal that started in the living room with deep friend grits balls, went on to roast beef with Bob's special potatoes and broccoli soufflé, salad, and finally the dessert. The guests seemed to like it even if they were stuffed like geese.

Fruited Eggnog Pudding

1 cup chopped mixed candied fruits
1/4 cup roughly chopped pecans or walnuts
2 tablespoons golden raisins
1/4 cup cognac
12 egg yolks,
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark rum (Light rum works just as well if that is all you have.)
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1 cup bourbon
2 cups heavy cream, whipped
2 tablespoons vanilla
Whipped cream for garnish
pieces of candied cherries

1. Soak the mixed fruits, nuts and raisins in the cognac,
2. Beat the eggs until very thick, lemon colored and smooth. Gradually beat in the sugar.
3. Add the rum and beat in well. Chill the mixture until it is at refrigerator temperature, about 40 minutes.
4. Soak the gelatin in the water. Heat to dissolve the gelatin. Add the bourbon and stir into the chilled egg mixture quickly and thoroughly.
5.  Fold in the whipped cream and vanilla and continue stirring until the mixture begins to thicken.  Fold in the soaked fruit and nut mixture and pour into a nine-cup mold, which has been rinsed with cold water or lightly oiled.
6.  Chill  at least five hours or overnight. Unmold and decorate with whipped cream and candied cherries.
Makes about 12 servings.
Note: If a nine-cup mold is not available,  divide the mixture between a six-cup mold and a three cup mold. When ready to serve, unmold and place one atop the other.

Lane Cake Filling

If the Lane Cake layers are nothing more than layers of plain, white cake, the filling is something else again. Filling is the proper term. This is not icing in any sense of the word. If, like me, you think of a proper cake coated with thick, smooth, swirly, pure chocolate mixed with butter , you are in for an eye-opener. The filling is beaten and lightly cooked egg yolks beaten with sugar, orange rind, bourbon, pecans, shredded coconut raisins and glace cherries (or in my case, the kind of candied fruit sold at Christmas for those of us who wanted to make fruitcake.)
The filling is lumpy, crunchy, and a taste thrill. Making it is not particularly difficult, but the cook does have to be careful. The directions say to mix the egg yolks, sugar and grated orange rind in a double boiler, and cook gently until the sugar dissolves, and, the mixture thickens to coat the back of the spoon. Well, that's fine, but, the second you stick the spoon into the unbeaten egg yolks, they coat the back of the spoon, so this is not a helpful direction. It took me about ten minutes of constant stirring to dissolve the sugar. The sensible novice cook may ask, "When will I know the sugar is dissolved?" Well, I lick the spoon every couple of minutes, and when the residue is not crunching in my teeth, I figure the sugar is dissolved.
I did not feel that the eggs were thick enough, especially after I added the 1/3 cup bourbon. By then, it was too late. My advice is to keep stirring at medium heat, which for a gas stove is about 4, and see what the eggs are like after 15 minutes.  You don't want scrambled eggs, so do not let the egg mixture boil.
The final mixture was liquidy in a sticky sort of a way.  It oozed out from between the layers, but wasn't really a problem. The candied fruit looked like jewels embedded in the coconut, pecan mixture. The bourbon made it really good.
The guests at the Mardi Gras potluck seemed to like it too, except for one person who left theirs on the piano bench. A successful production.

Lane Cake Filling

8 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups sugar
grated rind of one orange
1/3 cup bourbon
1/2 teaspoon mace
1 1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup raisins
1 cup glace cherries, quartered (or one cup of  candied fruit)


1. Mix together the egg yolks, sugar and orange rind in a heavy pan or in the top of a double boiler.
2. Stirring constantly, cook the mixture over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture thickens to coat the back of the spoon. Do not allow the mixture to boil or the egg yolks will be scrambled.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Cool before using to fill and top a three-layer cake. Makes about one quart of filling.

 

Minetry McCoy's Miracle (Dessert)

Minetry McCoy's Miracle is one dessert that lives up to its name. It is one hell of a good chocolate dessert. It ought to be, after all, since it contains a pound of butter. It is somewhat time consuming to make, but not difficult. The cook does not have to stand for hours over the stove stirring a mixture that stubbornly refuses to thicken. There is a good bit of separating, beating, mixing and melting, all done the day before. On the up side, it is completely delicious, and will be finished long before your dinner party, allowing you some time to wash your hair, or the kitchen floor, as the case may be.
I decided to  make M.M.M. because of a package of ladyfingers. Our daughter's friend, Laura, is living in our basement for a while. She offered us the ladyfingers. While there were several unmade recipes calling for ladyfingers in the southern section of the cookbook, this one looked like the best. My husband wanted to make Charlotte Russe, another dessert requiring ladyfingers, but I frankly couldn't see the point of a dinner party without at least one recipe checked off the list.
There are two issues. Number one is it uses raw eggs. My daughter advised using organic eggs. I buy organic eggs anyhow because of an article I read about some horrible substance that mass chicken farmers use to feed their chickens. Readers will have to use their own judgement on that. I can say, I am writing this on Wednesday after we ate it Saturday night, and no one has dysentery or other ill effects.
 Number two is that of an ingredient, amaretti, or Italian macaroons. Thanks to the Internet, these are readily available for less than $5. Google will send you to a website called www.ilmercadoitaliano.net, which will allow you to order these tasty little cookies and have them on your kitchen counter in two or three days. Desdeforunamente, as they say in Spanish speaking countries, I did not avail myself of this wonderful cooking resource. At 8:00 on Friday night, I realized I didn't have the cookies and got on the phone to Safeway. Safeway didn't  have them. So I hopped in the car and went up to Whole Foods, where the cocktail party they run every Friday night had just dispersed. I wandered around Whole Foods for about 15 minutes in a daze of fatigue, but amaretti were not to be found.
It's kind of a technical problem because there are already two radically different kinds of macaroons on the market, neither of which I wanted. I didn't want coconut macaroons, and I didn't want what I can only term French macaroons, which are the scarlet, fuchsia, violet and baby blue cookies that look something like tiny hamburgers in rainbow colors. Bob had said amaretti look something like vanilla wafers.
So, after a last scan of the cookie shelves, I grabbed a box of vanilla wafers. The first instruction is for the amaretti to be soaked in bourbon. However, the little wheels in what my children occasionally call the pea brain were turning. Since amaretti and amaretto were virtually the same word, how about sprinkling the vanilla wafers with amaretto, the Italian liqueur famous in my house for making mai tais? That's what I did. I didn't use as much amaretto as the recipe called for, to hold the cookies together. As it was, they were somewhat soggy.
I beat the egg yolks before I creamed the butter and sugar, figuring it was probably okay to cream the butter and sugar with a little egg yolk.the directions say beat until light in color. I beat my egg yolks for about four minutes. One would need paint chips to detect lightness, but it seemed to be fine.  I mixed in the melted chocolate, vanila, pecans (after a discussion of what you call them,) (Is it peCANS, pee-cans, or what?) and whipped the egg whites. In the meantime, Bob, my husband, dealt with the ladyfingers. The recipe says split them, assuming they are similar to cake. These were similar to cookies, so they could not be split. He lined the spring form pan with them.
After that, I lined the base of the pan with the vanilla wafers, and began layering chocolate mixture and cookies. All went into the refrigerator.
The next night, before the guests came, Bob decanted the miracle. Unfortunately, he hadn't see the picture of the completed miracle and took it out of the pan upside down. What we see in the picture is a mosaic of vanilla wafers, not the lovely yummy chocolate topping. But I must say, it did not detract from the guests' enjoyment of the dessert. This one is definitely a keeper. Hats off to the inventive Ms. McCoy.

Minetry McCoy's Miracle

1 pound sweet butter
2 cups sugar
12 eggs, separated
48 amaretti (Italian macaroons)
1 cup bourbon
4 ounces (four squares) unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
24 double ladyfingers, approximately
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, whipped

1. Day before, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat the egg yolks until light and beat into creamed mixture.
2. Soak the amaretti in the bourbon. (or amaretto, if you prefer.)
3. Beat the chocolate into the butter mixture. Add the vanilla and pecans. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold into the chocolate mixture.
4. Line a ten-inch springform pan around the side and on the bottom with split ladyfingers. Alternate layers of soaked macaroons and chocolate mixture in the lined pan. Chill overnight.
5 Next day, remove the sides of the pan and decorate the top of the dessert with whipped cream. Makes sixteen to twenty servings. (Minetry believed in modest little slices, apparently. We got about 10-12 servings out of this.)