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!

[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!!!!


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.

[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!

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.