Who likes fruitcake?

[Zen]

I do

but it has to be a good one.

Just curious, I think it it gets an undeserved bad rap.

[owlice]

I have not had any fruitcake that I like. I'm not opposed to trying additional fruitcakes.

(It seems to me that I could almost say the same thing about husbands, except that I have no desire to wed again! And I still like my first husband, though our marriage didn't work.)

[BikingNurse]

Owlice,
You said it perfectly!! lol Cracked me up.

[spazzdog]

If left unopened in its decorative tin, it makes a very nice doorstop :)

spazz

[GLC1968]

I voted against it though admittedly I haven't tried it since I was a kid. It just looks, feels and weighs so unappealing! :p

[OakLeaf]

It depends. If it's homemade with real fruit (and booze :)), sure. If it's made with candied artificially colored fruit parts, HFCS and unidentifiable starch, leave it in the package!

[withm]

Good fruticake is really really good. But I'd have to say that most of the store boughten stuff is really best left behind.

Two weekends ago, with my arm in a sling, I made 14 fruitcakes. It was not so easy. I use Goslings dark rum in mine, mostly dried fruit, and a very liberal dose of cognac before wrapping.

People that have poo-pood fruitcakes all their lives have practically begged to get on my fruitcake list. I save a couple out for birthday gifts to one of my sisters, and for my 90-yr old neighbor. I once watched my boss from 20 years ago devour half a cake at one sitting.

Needless to say, I like fruitcake a lot :) Gee - I've taken photos of a lot of interesting things I've made, but I've never photographed a fruitcake. When I open one up for Christmas dinner's desert tomorrow, I will shoot some pix for you.

Martha

[uforgot]

I choreographed a Christmas show a couple of years back, and in it was a song called "Everlasting Fruitcake". About a fruitcake that wouldn't go away no matter what they did. One of my all time favorite numbers! It was a show put on by 14-18 year olds, and none of them knew what a fruitcake was! I had to make two fake fruitcakes that could be tossed, dropped, etc. I mailed one to the director for Christmas last year, but this thread reminds me that I forgot to mail the second one! Oh well.lol

Oh, and for the record, I think fruitcake is okay. Not great, not nasty, just okay. I wouldn't go out of my way for it.

[azfiddle]

Although our family doesn't even celebrate Christmas (we're Chanukah people), my dad started baking fruitcakes when I was in college. He made them at Thanksgiving and drenched them in brandy or something and gave hem away as gifts around Christmas. They were pretty good as I remember... not like the industrial store bought variety.

Oh, and another delightful song on this theme: Mick Moloney's rendition of this song, about an Irish version of fruitcake.

Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake
Words and Music: C. Frank Horn, 1883

1. As I sat in my window last evening,
The letterman brought it to me
A little gilt-edged invitation sayin'
"Gilhooley come over to tea"
I knew that the Fogarties sent it.
So I went just for old friendships sake.
The first thing they gave me to tackle
Was a slice of Miss Fogarty's cake.

Chorus:
There were plums and prunes and cherries,
There were citrons and raisins and cinnamon, too
There was nutmeg, cloves and berries
And a crust that was nailed on with glue
There were caraway seeds in abundance
Such that work up a fine stomach ache
That could kill a man twice after eating a slice
Of Miss Fogarty's Christmas cake.

2. Miss Mulligan wanted to try it,
But really it wasn't no use
For we worked in it over an hour
And we couldn't get none of it loose
Till Murphy came in with a hatchet
And Kelly came in with a saw
That cake was enough be the powers above
For to paralyze any man's jaws

3. Miss Fogarty proud as a peacock,
Kept smiling and blinking away
Till she flipped over Flanagans brogans
And she spilt the homebrew in her tea
Aye Gilhooley she says you're not eatin,
Try a little bit more for me sake
And no Miss Fogarty says I,
For I've had quite enough of your cake

4. Maloney was took with the colic,
O'Donald's a pain in his head
Mc'Naughton lay down on the sofa,
And he swore that he wished he was dead
Miss Bailey went into hysterics
And there she did wriggle and shake
And everyone swore they were poisoned
Just from eating Miss Fogarty's cake

[badger]

I like it if it doesn't have that marzipan goop and those red and green cherry preserve things. My boyfriend's mother makes a really good one. So dense you can hurt someone if accidentally dropped on, but it's got a lovely taste.

[shootingstar]

I prefer homemade or from bakery because since I did make it, I could appreciate the effort by others to make it. But I prefer a light fruitcake vs. dark.

For several Christmases, a while ago, I did make my own fruitcake which was fresh cranberry-apricot fruitcake soaked in brandy for 1 month. Gave pieces to family members and some close friends as part of my gifts. Mine had candied ginger and I never put in maraschino cherries.

I stopped making and giving it when 1 of my brother-in-laws told me that their chunk was still around after a few months.

Note: Real marzipan is lovely. One needs to go to a European style artisan bakery.

[Pax]

If left unopened in its decorative tin, it makes a very nice doorstop :)

spazz
LOL!!!! :D


When I was a kid we would send fruitcake to my dad every christmas when he doing tours in Vietnam...my gramma would somehow manage to get an entire bottle of rum soaked into the thing before we mailed it. He was very popular with the men in his squadron. :p

[Deborajen]

I remember the Tonight Show did a piece about fruitcakes and how you can't get rid of them - they put a fruitcake inside a building, blew up the building, and there was nothing left but the fruitcake! :D :D

I can't stand the stuff with the candied fruit. It doesn't taste like anything you should really eat - ? But we used to get a diabetic fruitcake for my Grandpa and it wasn't bad. I also tried making one once. It was a tropical fruitcake with golden raisins, dried papaya, dried pineapple, dried apricots and coconut all rehydrated with almond liqueor and apple brandy. The fruit was good, but the cake was like sawdust. With a better cake recipe, that would probably be a good fruitcake. But it cost over $30 to make that cake, so I'm not planning on trying again.

[Zen]

These guys make a mean fruitcake
http://www.monasteryfruitcake.org/

[MomOnBike]

I've made fruitcake, and enjoyed eating it and giving it away this time of year. It gets such a bad rap, though, that I stopped. I don't want to go to all that work and expense if people aren't even going to try it. Sad, really. Some of them were really good.

Come to think of it, fruit cake is a lot like ravioli. The commercial canned stuff is inedible, but if you are lucky to get ravioli made by someone who knows how. . .:) :) :)

Sadly, about all anyone knows is the commercial varieties of either.

[Chile Pepper]

There aren't enough options in the poll. I wanted to vote "Blech! Why?" but had to settle for the demure "No thank you."

[kelownagirl]

love love love it. No one in my family made any this year. Sigh....

[channlluv]

My grandmother used to keep two big, gallon-size jars of brandied fruit "cooking" and would make these fantastic holiday cakes. Being oldest granddaugther, I was often assigned furniture polishing duty, and when I'd stop by that corner chest of drawers with the brandied fruit containers, I'd slip the lid off and take a big whiff and actually get a little high off the fumes.

Yeah, I admit it. I whiffed brandied fruit.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Roxy

[PamNY]

Oh, Zen, you made me want fruitcake.

Pam

[tzvia]

I used to love good fruitcake, warm with my favorite 31flavor, chocolate/peanutbutter, melting all over it...

MMMMM....
But that is how I got obese. Now I am not, and have 15 more lbs to go that just won't go and won't be helped by gooey fruitcake and ice-cream that is not on the menu any more. Oh well. I used to substitute a poptart for fruitake if I did not have any, and glob on the ice-cream. Yumm.

Fruitcake by itself is boring, but with ice-cream melted all over (with whipped cream, sprinkles and hot chocolate fudge) it is transformed into mondo dessert!

Ignore me, it's just the rambling of my fatso past. I can't remember the last time I had ice-cream or fruitcake or hot fudge.

I think fruitcake is the number 1 're-gifted' item in the U.S.

[Trek420]

I choreographed a Christmas show a couple of years back, and in it was a song called "Everlasting Fruitcake". About a fruitcake that wouldn't go away no matter what they did. One of my all time favorite numbers! It was a show put on by 14-18 year olds, and none of them knew what a fruitcake was! I had to make two fake fruitcakes that could be tossed, dropped, etc. I mailed one to the director for Christmas last year, but this thread reminds me that I forgot to mail the second one! Oh well.lol

Oh, and for the record, I think fruitcake is okay. Not great, not nasty, just okay. I wouldn't go out of my way for it.

Like this? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXe894yQmSA&feature=related

[smilingcat]

A real fruitcake is worth the weight in gold :D Sadly though, most so called fruitcake are worth its weight in lead. Not so good eats.

Well made fruitcake will warm your body. Will last a long time as it was meant to be. We preserve fruit of all sorts to make it last the year. To preserve the wonderful taste... A well made fruitcake is no different. The high sugar and alcohol helps to preserve it just as we preserve strawberries, peach, pear, raspberries... And remind us of the bounty of the season.

I care not for the HFCS in the cake. Nor the artificially colored gelatenous goo which are supposed to be some sort of fruit. Give me the real thing. Give me the fruit cake that was when it was made with nature's goodness.

I have plenty of nuts, raisins, dried cranberries... perhaps I will have to make my own. free range fruit cake (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/free-range-fruitcake-recipe/index.html)

in defense of honest fruitcake.
smilingcat

[Zen]

"Paean to the Well Made Fruitcake" by Smilingcat :)

That's precisely how I feel.
It could be that those who voted no have never had a truly good fruitcake or had some at an age when their palate wasn't quite refined enough to appreciate subtle (and not so subtle) flavors.

[Trek420]

Fruitcake ~ the good bad or evil vs Panettone?

[shootingstar]

Or stollen /kristollen traditionally from Germany, Austria or perhaps Switzerland.

The cake/crumb part is not as heavy as brandy-soaked heavy fruitcakes. Lighter in colour and they don't traditionally use maraschino cherries/overly sweet soaked fruits. It is drier in taste (something like panetonne, but a little more dense) and meant to have a good fine coffee.

Properly made stollen is aged up to 1 month. At least dearie's mom did, before she died.

For past few Christmases we buy from a well-known local artisan European bakery, Thomas Haas. Sample of his other cakes: https://thomashaas.com/page160.htm It is really high-end gourmet fine pastries that is on par with Iron Chef baking. This is what fine European baking is genuinely like.

Haas is originally from Germany, pastry chef training in Black Forest region...same region where dearie's mum came from and where she learned her fine baking.

Haas also is an avid mtbiker and sells cycling shirts (at somewhat high end prices).
But I will try any fruitcake offered to me, particularily if homemade.

Would agree with Zen, that understanding fruitcake and other variants, indeed alot of different desserts, requires over a long time, developing a more refined palate that understands nuances/subtleties in flavour, texture, etc. Before I knew dearie and hence, became exposed to the range of his mother's baking, I had super simplistic palate for baked desserts. At that time, I never understood subtleties of aniseed, hazelnut, etc.

(Now I am picky on quality of croissants, real tortes (vs. fake tortes full of just whipping cream), flans, etc. All this stuff means...I have to bike more!!)

[OakLeaf]

Now I've probably never had the really good stuff, but I think I've had decent stollen, and never really cared for it (or panettone). Too dry, I think, same reason I don't much like Viennese torten.

[Flybye]

Fruitcake is the garden zucchini of December. No one wants it :D

[salsabike]

Fruitcake is the garden zucchini of December. No one wants it :D

Now THERE'S some truth-tellin'. Maybe we fruitcake-haters have refined palates for OTHER subtle flavors but we just...plain...don't...like...fruitcake. :D

[Aggie_Ama]

My husband calls me a fruitcake. So I guess if you like fruitcake its a compliment? I admittedly have never had fruitcake, my Mammaw makes "Heavenly Hash" for Christmas. It is too funny to hear her think everyone is excited about it, some kind of crazy fruit salad dessert. :p

[malkin]

When it's good it's very very good...


That reminds me...I bought a Christmas pudding before I went to Mexico.

[Zen]

I could go for a hunka good fruitcake right now.

What is Christmas pudding?

[SlowButSteady]

We're such rednecks. The brick-like fruitcakes we used to get as gifts? You could underpin your trailer with them.

[spazzdog]

I could go for a hunka good fruitcake right now.

What is Christmas pudding?

See Wikipedia link for all things "Christmas pudding"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding

[Zen]

"Christmas pudding is a steamed pudding, heavy with dried fruit and nuts, and usually made with suet"

Suet?

[VeloVT]

I'd say I prefer fruitcake to mincemeat pie.

[MomOnBike]

OK, we're talking my soul foods here.

We called it either suet pudding or plum pudding, and it was steamed. My great-grandmother made it for Christmas, and I recall it as being quite good. It was served with a hard sauce, so called because it was made with a fair quantity of hard liquor. Whiskey, I think, with butter and powdered sugar. (That was good, too! :D )

My grandmother made mincemeat pies with venison. Again, quite good, and made with whiskey. (There may be a theme here. . .) There were other ingredients, raisins, I think, and apples (?).

I'm suddenly rather hungry. Sadly, I didn't get the recipes for either one.

[bmccasland]

I made shortbread cookies with mincemeat filling. Layer of shortbread, layer of mincemeat, another layer of shortbread - bake, cut into bars. I fell in love with these years ago while on vacation in Scotland.

[katluvr]

Ok, can't say I have ever had "homemade" fruitcake. Nor do I eat the store bought bricks, however...
I have a friend, she is an awesome cook. She does recipe's from all over the place...on line, food network, anyplace.
So for our "Christmas gathering" we did more appetizers. I don't know where she got the recipe but it was....
a cream cheese type mixture w/ savory seasonings (not sure what kind) and on top of this was crumbled (toasted) fruit cake, and bacon (yes!) and nuts. Then you put the spread on sliced toasted fruit cake. (yep, like a like spread on your cake).
It was oddly weird, sweat and savory (and a bit toasted)...can't say I liked it, but I had more than one. Very, very interesting mix.

K

[malkin]

Suet is a kind of fat.

I think pudding is an ancient version of what fruitcake was before those colors were invented for the fruit.

[spazzdog]

I think "bird feed" when I see the word "suet"... from the birdie aisle in the pet food store.

Somehow eating that stuff is not a pleasing thought :(

[malkin]

Thinking about eating fat doesn't really appeal to me much.

Actually eating it is really quite a pleasure under the right circumstances; especially when I'm blissfully unaware of it.

And you don't eat it plain fercryingoutloud.

[redrhodie]

Aw shucks! I finally had real fruitcake today for the first time since I was little, and I was going to vote, but the poll is closed. I liked it. It was made by the mother of one of the kids in my lbs, with no booze, but otherwise very traditional, even baked in a can. Lovely dried fruit and nuts, no florescent colors. I was thinking the ice cream would be good.

[Jenerator]

"Christmas pudding is a steamed pudding, heavy with dried fruit and nuts, and usually made with suet"

Suet?

Suet is fat off beef (or maybe also mutton) kidneys. It's a fairly hard, white fat that doesn't really have a lot of taste, just a unique melting point that makes it useful for steamed pudding.

It's one of the secret ingredients in my Mom's family's Carrot Pudding, traditionally served for desert around Christmas time (at least it was, until everybody got worried about eating too much fat and/or any meat products at all). I wouldn't use the stuff sold for bird feed and always used to get mine from the butcher, usually by special order.

Meanwhile, back on topic, I like good fruitcake, but can't be bothered with the store-bought stuff with artificially green & red things.

[malkin]

Fat in foods should always be a secret ingredient!