I don't know of anyone - myself included - who likes the stuff. If you make it the traditional, old-fashioned way (like my grandmother did, with all kinds of candied fruit and nuts) it is very labor-intensive.

Just about everybody, when presented with a loaf of it, will accept it with thanks and smiles, serve a slice all around with tea or coffee, and then, when company is gone, chuck the remainder into the trash.

How can such a "popular" tradition be so widely disliked??

Long shelf life.

The most re-gifted of all holiday horrors.

which reminds me of Johnny Carson's joke about fruitcakes: that there was only one fruitcake in the world and it just kept getting passed from person to person.

In older times, fruit was preserved by drying it, often in the sun.
In the midst of winter, a popular way to use these dried fruits was to include them in baking.
My Aunt learned to make fruit cake in the late 1800s.
Hers was alway well moistened with "holiday spirits".

Today we have no need to dry fruit to store it. Also I think it is a long lost art to properly prepare and serve the cakes.

Older folks were not "bound" by the typical Utah word of wisdom taboos that we see today. Commercial fruit cake is not likely to contain "spirits".

I don't miss the fruitcakes, but I really miss Grandma. She was one fantastic lady, and even though I'm now a grandma myself, there have been SO many times over the years that I wish I could have turned to her for wisdom. She never lacked it.

She was German, BTW, and always referred to any kind of glaceed fruit as "Zitron" - not just citrus fruit. It could mean cherries or other stuff as well. Maybe the spelling should be "Citron." I never saw it written - I only heard her say it.

mmmmmmm mamma's


'brandyed' mincemeat

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mmmmmmm mamma's
>
>
> 'brandyed' mincemeat


* a dash of vinegar did the moremun trick







mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Well, you have just "met" someone who loves fruitcake! Historically, fruitcake was an expensive luxury with dried fruits and brandy. It keeps well for long periods when wrapped in a cheesecloth soaked with brandy. It is very high in calories and was used as a food for alpinists. A good dark fruitcake, made with dates, raisins, dried cherries, and dried figs (none of that nasy candied stuff) is heavenly. Sigh. This is a reminder that I should start collecting the ingredients and make some for Christmas in the next month or so. :-)

I love fruitcake.

That being said, as a child my mom would spend the money and effort to make fruitcake for Christmastime. Later on, she discovered those dry store-bought ones that tasted rather bland. She read in a magazine about soaking store-bought fruitcakes in liquor, but decided to try something without alcohol, even though my parents weren't LDS. She would soak a fruitcake in apple juice, orange juice, or sometimes a mixture of both and wrap them up and store them in the bottom of the fridge. After so many weeks of storage, she would retrieve a soaked loaf and slice off a few pieces for herself and us kids. It was much better soaked. I don't remember my dad being interested in the stuff.

Soak it in Brandy then serve with whip creme. YUM

My Grandma poured a layer of hot caramel icing on top when she served it. I could eat my shoe with a layer of hot caramel icing on top of it.

it has quality dried fruit and isn't too dry. Moisture is the key. Dry fruitcake is for the birds. Literally!

they make great door stops.

One slice yearly is as much as I want to appreciate. There's no accounting for taste.

Pumpkin cookie bars, delicious, light and cakelike!

Fruitcake is not nearly as popular as it was 50-60-70 years ago, at least where I live. Perhaps we have increased ethnic diversity to thank for helping expand our tastes in holiday treats.

My "funny fruitcake" story involves a church senior citizen group my mother led back in the 70s. A store donated dozens of beautiful, canned, expensive fruitcakes to the group, so of course they were distributed at the Christmas party. The following week the reports came back: "We loved the brandied fruit cake." oh, oh. Brandied? The church sponsoring the senior group is just as strongly anti-alcohol as the LDS church is!

What was the lesson? When something is donated to be passed on as gifts,open one first and be sure it meets "code".

I once asked my mom why people made fun of fruitcake and she said, "you don't get the joke because your grandma makes delicious fruitcakes".

I think I would like them even better now if she weren't Mormon and had soaked them in rum.

My step-mother's fruitcake would make a believer of all of yous. She would bake it the weekend after Thanksgiving. It was wrapped in cheese cloth which she soaked with apricot brandy every few days. By the time Christmas came and the fruitcake was passed around, it was the most sublime confection EVER!

I'm seriously considering making one this year, and will cover it with the customary marzipan and royal icing. Although I'll probably be the only one to eat it.

I've always wondered that too, how fruitcake could be such a popular holiday tradition.

I actually like fruitcake. I always liked my mom's homemade fruitcake, and there is a canned kind I like that's from a mail order company. But I don't think I know anyone else (besides my mom) who likes it. So why do the store shelves suddenly fill with fruitcakes after Halloween every year? I've never been able to figure it out. Who buys them, and why?

I think I'm not a fan because I've never had good stuff before.

Only the candied type. I love dried fruit that has been soaked in a good dark rum though so I think if I had good fruit cake I might like it.

Because it's yummy....especially when it's soaked in rum, the way we make it.

Ron Burr

I can choke it down with a thick slab of cream cheese on the slice. That's about the only way though.

I make a good fruitcake. I use a variety of dried fruits soaked in simple syrup that has bourbon in it.

The one true fruitcake comes from Costco every Christmas season. Try wrapping it in a brandy soaked wrap and store it a while in the refrigerator. The best modern fruitcake ever.

Colorado has an annual fruitcake toss every year. Amazing to watch the inventive catapults designed to see who can 'toss' a fruitcake the farthest.


http://www.visitcos.com/manitou-springs-fruitcake-toss

Great fun for the family!

The fruitcake toss is only one of them. The Emma Crawford Coffin race is coming up in a couple of weeks!

My Mum made a wicked dark fruitcake....I still have the recipe which was to her by a lady here in Edmonton in the 1960s. The store bought stuff is nasty.

I may be strange but I like fruitcake.

bona dea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I may be strange but I like fruitcake.


`


always knew you were a fruitcake

takes one ta know one


:o)

NOW is the time to make fruitcake!

But you have to do it right: soak in brandy or rum, and let it age!

My recipes: http://packham.n4m.org/fruitcake.htm

It can be quite expensive and time consuming to make a good fruitcake. It may take a month (or more, of soaking) and cost upwards of $75 for a good cake, but is so tasty, if made well, soaked in brandy, rum or other spirits, and served right, with ice cream, pajamas and egg nog.

Citron is the French word but it tastes the same.

Makes me wanna rejoice living in arizona fruitland.