One of my desserts is kinda hard to get a calorie count. It's a Brandied Fruit Cake. Also known as Friendship Cake. It takes 30 Days to make, and you add a total of 5 cups of sugar to it. You drain and save the juice and make two cakes out of the fruit. Then, you take 1½ cups of the juice to start a new batch of brandied fruit. That you also add 5 cups of sugar to, so I don't even know how to start. And it's a really good cake! I've had this juice for close to 10 years. I would think that fermentation would eat a lot of the sugar, but I don't know how to even begin estimating it.

Any ideas?

that is a tough one. I love fruit cake only because it reminds me of my childhood. That was one of the joys of my childhood. One of my relatives would make it for me. Not sure if it had brandy in it. Good luck in finding out the information you need. Sometimes if you google your inquiries it might come up.

I've seen some that were similar. But, this starter is pink. I don't believe the starter ever had flour or milk in it. The first three years, I used to add a cup of peach brandy to it. I was hoping there was some extrapolation of bacteria eats x amount of sugar.

So far the only ones I have seen a calorie count on don't have the fermentation process. What I've considered is to just add what I know and consider the sugar eaten...

It is very thick to stir the first few days after you put the sugar in, and then it's much easier. As if the sugar does go somewhere? My recipe also calls for the juice of all the fruits you use to be added.

That's one of the reasons I only make it for the Holidays. I'm afraid it'll be in the 500 range...

Why dont you go to the food network and post the question to your favorite chef? I must have seen Alton Brown speak with his food scientist lady a million times. Ask him!

Good luck!

The weight of the fruit and sugar will give you a ball park. THIS kind of fermentation is not like the yogurt fermentation (lactose becomes lactic acid byproduct after being digested)...this kind is sugars become alcohol, which has the same calories per gram/ml as sugar with the disadvantage that your liver will suck up those calories preferentially, effectively making alcohol a "supercarb" (c.f. Atkins).

Weigh your fruit/syrup and multiply by the calories of, say, half sugar and half alcohol.

ps: Liquers (e.g., Peach Brandy) are sugared flavoured alcohol...that's why they are so sweet. The sugar is liquid sugar or converted to alcohol, it doesn't actually go anywhere.

Sorry...

I would probably just count all the calories and carbs that were put into the recipe, and divide by serving size. It will give you a close enough approximation, even if some of those carbs are now alcohols.

I can't imagine this being a staple of any LC plan- I'm assuming you'll have 1-5 servings per YEAR, and all on holidays with friends and family around, as part of a larger celebration. Honestly, I'd probably make no effort to calculate the calories and carbs, nor to track my foods on those holidays when it gets eaten.