Does Anybody Out There Like Fruitcake?

I mean traditional fruitcake. Especially the store-bought kind. I've yet to hear of a single person who actually enjoys getting this as a gift or eats more than one obligatory piece.

I did buy a small stollen from Paulina when I was there buying our Christmas roast. I'm interested to get my first taste (although I'm pretty sure I should have gone to Dinkel's). It seems that stollen isn't quite as loathed as fruitcake, but isn't it basically the same thing?

A few years ago a very dear elderly friend began sending us fruitcake from the Colin Street Bakery in Texas. It was absolutely delicious! Very fresh fruity taste. We took to cutting it in to sections and freezing it for use over the next month or so and to keep the fresh fruit taste. Our friend passed away this year so I guess we will have to send away for one on our own.

http://www.collinstreet.com/?gclid=CIHX ... DQodmCDOMw

I got turned on to the Alton Brown Free Range Fruitcake recipe a few years ago and love it. For some reason I haven't made any yet this year, but last year I made near a dozen and gave them away, ate a few myself.

-Dan

My fruitcake dilema:
I LOVE the nuts, and the dough part. LOVE them. I find, however, candied fruits or citron, or whatever that stuff is completely inedible. I like the dough so much that, I will actually eat a chunk of fruitcake, picking out and eating the dough and nuts from the fruit particles, which is hardly worth the task considering it's usually mostly comprised of those fruit things. Hmm, I might just web up a recipe, and make it with only nuts and dough. That candied fruit/citron stuff tho - where in the world did that stuff come from? My logical guess would be somewhere with not a lot of access to fresh fruits or preservation of fresh fruits in their natural form.

Commercial fruitcake is, indeed, nothing to be pleased by, except to the extent that you're pleased by any gooey, oversweet American industrial pastry, such as the cellophane-wrapped muffins served on the "continental breakfast" line at the less expensive motel chains. As with so many things, the commercial version has upped the grease and sugar to a point that the lower reptile brain craves it but the higher cognitive functions are repelled, hence fruitcake's simultaneous persistence as a product and as a butt of jokes.

Stollen is a closer relative of panettone than it is of any fruitcake, having the fluffier consistency of sweet bread. A true fruitcake should be dense, a brick of cake, but it should not be repellently gooey, greasy or sticky. For years I have made batches of fruitcakes as presents in a roughly old English style, loosely inspired by a recipe in Fannie Farmer, full of robust spices and flavors such as molasses and tempering the candied fruits with more substantial things such as dates, figs and apricots. Here's what I do:

Old-Fashioned Dark Fruitcake

Containers of candied red and green cherries, orange peel, lemon peel, citron (I use one small container of each for 4 loaves, except a large container of the red cherries)
A cup or so each of dried figs, dates and apricots, roughly chopped
2 sticks butter, or 1 stick butter + 1/2 cup shortening
2 C dark brown sugar
2 tsp lemon extract
4 eggs
1 C molasses
4 C flour (I use 1 C whole wheat in mix)
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp mace
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp salt
1 C milk

Butter four small loaf pans. Preheat oven to 325F.

Cream the butter/shortening, add brown sugar, beat. Add lemon extract and eggs, beat well. Stir in molasses.

Mix together dry ingredients. Beat into the wet mixture. Add milk and beat till smooth.

Stir in fruits. I find it helps to put half of everything in, stir it around, then put the other half in. Pour into four loaf pans and bake for an hour to 1:15, using toothpick to test doneness.

Allow to cool a bit, then gently tap out of pans. Cut four lengths of cheesecloth* about two feet long. Pour some brandy in a shallow dish, let the cheesecloth soak it up, then use it to wrap each fruitcake, place bac in baking pans, cover with foil. Let cure for at least a week; sprinkle cloth with brandy once a week if not eaten already!



* Great Cathy2 observation: buy cheesecloth at a fabric store, not a cooking-related store, you will pay a fraction.

i love a good fruitcake. but it has to have candied citron.

this is where i get mine: http://www.gethsemanifarms.org/fruitcake.aspx

I love fruitcake. Any kind. I have made the Golden Ginger one (recipe found in a Williams Sonoma catalog) several times. The thing is, when you say fruitcake people immediately think of those cough-syrup-flavored ones, and refuse to try the good stuff

Depending upon quality, count me in, too. Nick Malgieri had an article on and recipe for a particularly good one in the Trib about a week ago--a Macao fruitcake with just candied orange/lemon peel, currants, raisins, and golden raisins. Cake-like, though dense, and quite good.

I love fruitcake, but only home-made-- it has to have lots of booze. My dear father-in-law used to buy very expensive fruitcakes from Harry and David, but they were nasty.

I generally make fruitcake every couple of years to use up whatever gigantic bags of nuts and dried fruit I have from Costco. So one year it is walnuts, dates, and raisins, the next year pecans, apricots, and prunes. Next year I need to step up a notch by making my own candied peel-- other posters are correct that the commercial stuff is nasty. Also I use bourbon instead of brandy.

Cheers, Jen

I love fruit cake. There may be one out there I couldn't eat, but I haven't encountered it yet.

Hi,

I have a conditional like of fruitcake. Not too keen on cakes loaded with spirits. I thought by making them myself, I might like it better. I kept saying it was good, though internally I wasn't very keen.

I love the Collins Street Fruitcake. My best friend's family always received one or two as gifts. One went to the freezer for future eating, which meant our after school treat a few months later. One was eaten by thin slices doled out over the Christmas. When one gets to my home, well it is only there for a few days. Yes, I could learn from my friends how to appreciate fruitcake over an extended period of time.

I don't like candied commercial peel, citron or other off-color citrus-ish fruits that make their way into theses fruit cakes. I haven't made any fruitcake with my own candied peel, which maybe someday I should.

I do like fruitcakes loaded with dates, currants, raisins, dried cherries, figs, prunes and lots of nuts. For the last several years, I make for the holidays date-nut loaves from Nancie McDermott's Southern Cakes book. This year I made them early enough to roll them in foil with thin slices of apples to ripen them. She also has a whimsical fruitcake with orange slice candy, which once baked you pour in orange juice to moisten it.

A Canadian ex-pat who has lived in the United States for almost 50 years, advised a Jewel fruitcake is a type favored by Canadians. I plan to get over there to buy one for a future Chicago Foodways Roundtable meeting on Canadian food. If I identify it, I will advise what it is.

Regards,

I never liked fruitcake until a friend served me a slice of fruitcake from the Assumption Abbey in Ava, Missouri. I still don't dare give it as a gift to anyone who has not eaten it in my presence, but it tastes like a moist spice cake with chunks of marinated dried fruit in it. It's delicious. But the monks don't make a lot of them, so they were sold out before I could get mine this year.

I love fruitcake, but agree that the commercial neon-colored candied fruits are an abomination. I've made it myself, like that, too.

Fruitcake haters might want to try figgy pudding or plum pudding, both made with real fruit, nice dense cake, but steamed so as to be moist and delicious. Made all the better when you can stew your own dried fruit in the booze of your choice (which I like better than boozy cake.) And still yet better served warm with a hard sauce. And even yet better when doused with booze and set on fire. (see a theme, here?) (caveat - haven't tried these recipes; mine came straight out of Joy of Cooking - I don't remember using breadcrumbs, but instead a more fruitcakey batter, or something similar to brown bread.)

Like everything else, there is good fruitcake and bad.

I think that what most people dislike in fruitcake, though, are two things: The dense texture and candied citron, mostly the latter. Leaving the citron out will make your fruitcake much more popular. Try substituting a little fresh orange zest.

I like candied citron, myself, both the citrus peel and melon rind varieties, but I must say that the best fruitcake I ever ate was I decidedly nontraditional one that consisted almost entirely of candied cherries, chocolate and nuts. I bought it years ago at the old Warehouse Club, failed to retain the wrappings and have never seen another one like it.

Does panettone count? More bread than cake, I suppose, but I've enjoyed the couple times I've had it.

Then again, I'm Jewish and know nothing of Christmas foods.

Mike G wrote:Here's what I do:

I've had Mike's fruitcake and it is indeed delicious, MAG/Melissa Graham makes a mean fruitcake as well.

Speaking of fruitcake, I was at Schlegl's picking up a slice of carrot cake, spied a tasty looking slice of fruit cake and added it to my purchase. When the small slice rang up at $5.50 I said Whoa, the counter girl smiled and said that was a common reaction, especially when they find out whole fruitcakes, also on the small side, are $55.

I didn't take the slice of fruitcake, almost six bucks with tax seemed high* for a flier on fruitcake, but the carrot cake was as good as always. I should note that, in general, Schlegl's prices are reasonable and quality is high.

Enjoy,
Gary

*I realize fruitcake uses costly ingredients.

Schlegl's Bakery
3915 W. Touhy
Lincolnwood, IL
847-568-1750

There are lots of cakes and breads with dried or candied fruit in them, but they are not "fruitcake." Although stollen and panettone both have fruit and are served at Christmastime, both are essentially yeast breads. Some definitions:

Stollen, loaf-shaped German yeast bread, studded with dried and candied fruit and covered in powdered sugar.



Pannettone, round, high, eggy Italian yeast bread studded with raisins and candied citron or citrus peel.



Fruitcake, dense loaf-shaped or circular cake of British origin, heavy with dried and candied fruit and nuts, typically soaked in liquor and aged before eating.

Mike G wrote:

Omigoodness. They baked Rudolph's nose in there!

I love fruitcakes or, to be more precise, I love the darker, old-fashioned fruitcakes. A slice with a cup of tea is divine on a cold day. The typical grocery store American fruitcake with chunks of candied fruits and no batter is abominable and, unfortunately, as someone else noted, this is what most people define as fruitcake.

Today, I am baking a Black Cake which is a Caribbean fruitcake - yes, the same one that Laurie Colwin described in such memorable fashion. My dried fruits (raisins, prunes, sultanas) have been macerating in a heady brew of rum and wine for six months. Typically, this cake is covered with marzipan and then royal icing in the British fashion. However, I plan to serve it plain. This is my first attempt at making this cake. I will report back.

Jyoti

tgoddess wrote:Omigoodness. They baked Rudolph's nose in there!

LOL

jygach wrote:Today, I am baking a Black Cake which is a Caribbean fruitcake - yes, the same one that Laurie Colwin described in such memorable fashion. My dried fruits (raisins, prunes, sultanas) have been macerating in a heady brew of rum and wine for six months. Typically, this cake is covered with marzipan and then royal icing in the British fashion. However, I plan to serve it plain. This is my first attempt at making this cake. I will report back.

Jyoti

Please do! I have a recipe for that and I'm kicking myself for not making it yet, but with all the other goodies in the house I'm waiting til after the new year. This is the recipe I have:

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/T ... Black-Cake

I think the aging is really important for things soaked in strong spirits. I made my bourbon balls for the cookie exchange on the 13th and only last week did I feel like they were really right. Next time I have to make them 2-3 weeks ahead.

leek wrote:I think the aging is really important for things soaked in strong spirits.

I agree completely. The recipe I posted upthread needs a minimum of 3-4 weeks to really come in to it's own. Due to my lack of willpower, I usually make a bunch so that I can sneak pieces and still have a couple of cakes after the month-long wait.

-Dan

I love fruitcake. There are some that are really bad but others quite delicious. I like the Collins St. Bakery Fruitcake. I also like some fruitcakes I've made. I also love stollen.

Mrs. Fogarty's Christmas Cake wrote:There were plums and prunes and cherries,
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 stomachache
That could kill a man twice after eating a slice
Of Mis' Fogarty's Christmas cake.

I also love fruitcake, as long as it has enough fruit. In fact, I kind of created my own recipe and baked it in individual sizes in a muffin pan. Then, you store it in a cool place, sealed in a plastic ice cream bucket with a cloth soaked in orange juice. Lasts as long as it takes me to eat it, since no one else fights me for it!

I like a light colored and flavored batter.

I have to admit that fruitcake is not my favorite dessert or holiday treat. However, if I am going to buy one (or a few dozen), I get them from one of the many monasteries.

Currently, my favorite is the fruitcake from the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, VA. We especially liked the "Fraters" which are fruitcake slices dipped in rich dark chocolate.

http://www.monasteryfruitcake.org/


My cousin prefers the whiskey soaked fruicake from the Abbey of Gethsmani in Trappist, KY.

http://www.gethsemanifarms.org/