Vegan Fruitcake

There was a time when I didn't understand why fruitcakes deserved popular derision. My earliest memories of fruitcake were nothing but pleasant. The fruitcake I was familiar with bore no resemblance to the re-gifted bricks that starred in many a holiday joke. The fruitcake that I loved was from The Collin Street Bakery in Texas. My parents discovered this delicious fruitcake while my dad was in The U.S. Air Force, stationed in Texas. They maintained the tradition of ordering these Texas fruitcakes every Christmas, thus my love of fruitcake was born.
Only many years later did I venture to sample any other fruitcake. After trying one of the bricks that they tried to pass off as fruitcake in the grocery store, I learned why people have a negative impression of them. Most folks have never had a good one.
Needless to say, when I decided to make a vegan fruitcake, I was attempting to mimic the masterpiece of The Collin Street Bakery, not the quasi-edible building material that most folks associate with the term.
While The Collin Street Bakery's fruitcake includes nuts, I've left them out of mine. I prefer a more pure fruit and sugar experience.
And, while I can't exactly argue that this is health food, it is unquestionably better for you than the counterparts which include dairy and eggs.

Ingredients

4 tsp egg replacer

8 Tbsp water

½ cup vegan margarine

16 ounces candied cherries

16 ounces candied pineapple

2 - 3 ounces candied fruit and peel mix

1 cup brown sugar

2 ½ cups orange juice with pulp

3 ⅕ cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp allspice

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

Ingredient notes:

Egg replacer: Use Ener-G Egg Replacer or ground flax seeds. I use a half and half mixture of both.

For vegan margarine, I recommend Earth Balance. I’ve never tasted a better margarine and even if I had no ethical qualms with butter, I would still prefer Earth Balance.

Candied fruit: There is certainly some latitude on amounts and types of fruit here. The ingredients here are just my personal preference.

Flour: I use a mixture of unbleached all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour (about ¾ to ¼)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Briefly whip the egg replacer and water until fluffy.

Mix margarine, sugar, whipped egg replacer, candied fruit, and orange juice in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then cool for 5 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices, then mix in the boiled mixture from the previous steps.

Transfer completely mixed ingredients to loaf tins and bake for 35 - 40 minutes.

(spray loaf tins with cooking oil spray first - I use canola)

Preparation notes:

I’ve found that once the cakes begin to brown on top that flipping each of them over into other loaf tins will make them cook more evenly. (Of course - spray the tins with cooking oil first.)

Sad Future

I’m sad for the future of humanity.
I would love to see a realization of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. I would love to live in that Star Trek world where poverty and hunger and most of the things that have plagued us since the dawn of our species are no more. In fact, I believe that the only thing that will guarantee the long term survival of life as we know it is space exploration. Brighter minds than mine have corroborated this idea. Stephen Hawking said, "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space."
An extinction level event like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs would surely be the end of us. At this point there wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do about it. We are sequestered on this island earth and most folks bitch and complain about funding NASA as if nothing they do has any practical application. It does. And when crunch time comes, when the most important application becomes apparent, it will be too late. Unless we get our priorities in order now.
But the bigger issue may be that we’re not fit to be welcomed into a federation of planets. We are guilty of egregious speciesism. The atrocities we have committed against our own species are certainly bad enough. All the wars and genocides of recorded history total 619 million human deaths. A staggering statistic, no doubt, but we kill the same number of non-human animals every 5 days. Every 5 days. Is that as horrifying to you as it is to me? There are a plethora of ways human beings justify it. All those ways boil down to the idea that we are better than those non-human sentient beings. But are we? I would argue quite the opposite. We are the only animals on the planet who behave so abominably while we have evolved the capacity to know that it’s wrong.
Non-human animals kill for survival, but we kill for the most trivial reasons - taste, convenience, tradition, and most shocking of all: for fun. The last reason is the most baffling to me. How can anyone but a psychopath derive pleasure from murdering another sentient being? It’s no wonder that William Ralph Inge said, "We have enslaved the rest of animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form." And how could we fault them for it?
The single most important thing we can do towards making ourselves fit to venture forth into the cosmos is to adopt a vegan lifestyle. To show that we care about all sentient beings and not just our own kind. I regret that I didn’t come to this realization earlier in my life than I did. I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly two decades, a vegan for well over a year. And I’ve tried to spread the word that it’s a wonderful and easy lifestyle to adopt. But I don’t see that I’ve convinced anyone. And that’s what makes me sad. My closest friends are good, compassionate people, yet I haven’t convinced even one of them that veganism is important enough for them to actually adopt it. And if they remain unconvinced, what hope is there for others in the world who may not be the good, compassionate people my friends are?
I’m sure veganism would be a hard-sell if the food wasn’t delicious or if it was bad for your health, but neither of these propositions are true. In fact, many of the leading killers of human beings are diseases that could be all but eradicated with a plant-based diet. And taste is all about preparation. The things that you season meat with to make it palatable come from plants, so it should come as no surprise that there is a lot of delicious vegan food.
There are a world of vegan meals that I’m just beginning to explore, but I assure you that there is no dearth of great-tasting food in my life. And none of it involves the taking of other sentient life. I invite you to join me in this healthy and ethical lifestyle. The only reason that vegan food isn’t as convenient as the fare to which most of you have grown accustomed is that there are relatively few vegans. As our numbers increase, more convenient vegan food will become ubiquitous. When it becomes obvious that there is money to be made by producing vegan food, every greedy corporation in the world will jump on the bandwagon. I implore you to help me make that happen.