The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Pullman Loaf Pans

Scott A. Bagley's picture
Scott A. Bagley

Pullman Loaf Pans

Every Christmas, my grandmother baked fruitcakes for her three daughters, wrapped in cheesecloth, and soaked in liquor (rum?) for weeks before visiting the families. She stopped baking them when I was about 14, so the memories are dim, except they tasted GREAT, very dense with LOTS of different dried fruits. What always stumped me was that they were perfectly square and really long, like 16"-18" long. How was that possible???

I contacted my cousins, and they, too, are interested in recreating these memories. My cousin Corinne remembers that the original cake recipe was - get this - Campbell's tomato soup cake that my great-grandmother found in the 1930s, probably in some magazine. What happened to the recipes handed down from the old country??? Nope, my cooking heritage comes from old magazine cutouts and the backs of canned goods. Oh well, we're not all descended from royalty. :-) 

So I searched my mom's and gramma's old recipe boxes and, lo and behold,  there's the tomato soup cake recipe on a 3x5 card. On the back was written "Pullman Pans, Grossmutter's, Campbell's Soup".

AHAH!!!!

So now I'm Googling Pullman loaf pans and have discovered them WITH and WITHOUT lids/covers. Now, I remember the fruitcakes were perfectly square, but maybegramma shaved off the rounded top to of a coverless Pullman to make it so.

So here's my question: Should I go ahead and purchase the Pullman Pans with covers to make this fruitcake, considering I remember them being quite dense? Do you believe the cake with be moister with a lid? Or would the lid even matter?

Scott Bagley

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

In addition to your gramma's fruit cake, you can do loaves like this. What fun to have access to those old recipes!

Have fun!

Carole

hreik's picture
hreik

Get it with the lid.  You might be glad you did sooner rather than later.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55528/pan-de-mie

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Would you share the recipe?

Paul

Scott A. Bagley's picture
Scott A. Bagley

Will do, but the base recipe is the classic "Campbell's Tomato Soup Cake" (Google it), with an unknown amount of dried fruit, and adjusted to a 16"x4"x4" Pullman Loaf Pan. I've already arranged with my cousin to visit her on a weekend in early December, where we'll bake four 16" fruitcakes.

I just found out that my cousin, who lived much closer to my gramma, actually cooked these fruitcakes with gramma during her childhood. I plan to weep for loved ones passed for about 2 days when we cook together, to honor three generations of Rahmstorf/Petersen/Fotheringham women

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Looking forward to seeing it.

Paul

MontBaybaker's picture
MontBaybaker

Paul, just doing a quick browse tonight.  When I get a minute I'll post my husband's grandmother's cake (Missouri farm wife).  Not too sweet, almost more fruit than batter, and I make some changes from how my mother-in-law does it as my husband isn't fond of the 2 lb of dates.  Karen

pmccool's picture
pmccool

My MIL made a fabulous fruitcake (even if she did include the red and green glace fruit).  

I made several Zelten, from The Rye Baker, this November.  Still have a smidge of one of those left.  It may be my current favorite, although there's a fruit bread in Bernard Clayton's The Complete Book of Breads that is pretty good.

Paul