I am one of that rare breed that loves dark fruit cake with marzipan. I buy one from our local grocery store every year, which is nice and moist, but seem to eat the whole thing myself.

I am not a fan, but we never really ate them in our house either, so I have no special memories of fruitcakes at the holidays.

There are other sweets I like that if I am going to have the calories, it better be something worth it to me.

We had one every year as a kid. After all the fudge, cookies, candy canes, and chocolates were gone, we'd bring out the fruit cake about New Year's Eve. That and the clove ribbon candy were the last to go.

I love them, always have. My favorite is lots of pecans, cherries, raisins and pineapple. Although will eat any of them. Son sent me one last year that was wonderful, but can't remember where he bought it. They offered combinations of ingredients and expensive. This must be an acquired taste, always seemed to be a gift from someone to my parents.

I love a small mini loaf of fruit cake, especially a really moist one. It satisfies me for a year. But fruit cake is like peppermint ice cream where one or two servings are enough - but buy a whole gallon and it gets old real quick.

We love the traditional dark fruitcake that is simply made with raisins, currants and sultanas -- not with the glazed fruit ...no marzipan ....

In fact -- our wedding cake was made by a Scots baker and was the traditional dark fruitcake. A lighter cake version is known as a "Dundee" cake ...ot a "golden" cake ....

I do miss Mari (her screen name was johnmari) -- she made great fruitcake! And told the most wonderful stories too!

I buy my seasonal fruitcake from World Market (along with Walker's mincemeat tarts, Christmas pudding and ginger shortbread)

If my Mum was visiting -- she would be adding "a few wee drops" of brandy to the fruitcake! :)

I like fruitcake with a sauce of carmel or vanilla on top.
I usually make a Plum Pudding with a hard sauce and a brandy sauce so that is what we have been having the last few Christmases so I do not bother with the fruit cake.

OMG, I LOVE fruitcake! As a child I used to wait for that Claxton cake every year.... Sliced and toasted, with Constant Comment tea.....best afternoon tea, EVER! We still have it although since I am the only one who eats it most gets thrown away. I also like the homemade fruitcake with whiskey.

Claxton brand, purchased as soon as they are on the shelves. Wrap in cheesecloth, place in a tupperware container, pour bourbon on it. Lots of bourbon. By Christmas, its perfect!

ML

I like them if they are moist and you can taste the booze. I always pick out the disgusting green candied boogers (or whatever they are).

Maddielee, what a brilliant idea! I wonder if spiced rum would work as well?

Ooooooo ... spiced rum would be wildly delicious .... Just imagine a warm spiced rum cake or pudding with really good ice cream or hard sauce ....

Mum would prefer to add brandy .... although some of the Christmas puddings and cakes can be made (and enhanced) with the "guid" (good) Scots whiskey too! :)

When we had my mum and my dad for Christmas -- we would light the brandy .... and enjoy the flaming Christmas pudding in a darkened (just candlelit) dining room! :)

Funny family story: When we were young -- Mum would order the Christmas cake and a pudding from a local bakery. When it was ready in early December -- it would be picked up -- and then stashed in the cold cellar (or fruit cellar) in our basement. Mum would disappear down the stairs with a really good "tot" of brandy to "warm" the cake and the pudding. Dad would tease her that "he could smell that pudding from down the street" and that we couldn't light a candle anywhere NEAR the cold cellar -- the whole house would be blown to "Kingdom Come" :) LOL!

Of course -- in our house -- Santa was left a slice of Christmas cake (or shortbread) and a brandy or a whiskey .... because Mum would say that he needed a bit of a "warm-up" by that time! :)

LOL! :)

I love fruitcake, too. Also love plum pudding with homemade hard sauce. Yum.

I love that Truman Capote short story, "A Christmas Memory" too. When I lived in New Orleans, about late November/early December, I'd think, "It's fruitcake weather," partly because of that story & partly because pecans and citrus were in season at that time. So for several years, I made fruitcakes at Christmas time -- lots of fun to make. But my family preferred cookies, so homemade Christmas fruitcake fell by the wayside. One thing that helped: marinate the dried fruit in juice (any kind of fruit juice) to plump them up a bit & boost the flavor. Oh, and add extra pecans. Never enough pecans!

I think most people don't like the dried fruit that the grocery stores sell. It's tasteless and overly sweet.

But when I made candied orange peel two years ago, that was a revelation -- delicious, especially when dipped in chocolate. Homemade candied fruit might be the ticket. Maybe next summer, if I remember and if there's a decent cherry harvest, I'll try making glaceed fruit and storing it for homemade fruit cake:

make your own candied cherries

how to glace fruit

I like the kind without liquor added that is made with pineapple, pecans and cherries. I'm not sure why fruitcake got such a bad reputation, maybe because it had become an ubiquitous hostess gift back in the 1950's? Maybe that's why Carson joked about it? To make it popular again, all that would have to happen would be to show it in a positive light on Mad Men...LOL!

I do like fruitcake, but only certain kinds. My grandmother used to make fruitcake cookies every year at Christmas, and they were divine.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Favorite Fruitcake

I am from England where fruitcake has never been a joke!

I make two fruitcakes every year, no later than October. From then until Christmas I 'feed' them by brushing them with good rum or brandy. I make my own candied peel as the neon variety in the supermarkets looks disgusting and the flavor bears no comparison with the real thing. I also make the marzipan for the cake that I decorate for Christmas. Made with homemade organic almond flour it has a hint of citrus and is delicious. The other cake is eaten later, when the Xmas cake is all gone, without marzipan, often with a slice of good English cheese!

I could never understand fruitcake being the gag gift.....until I sampled some store bought cake! It was terrible. Not so much a joke as a crime! Good fruitcake is rich and moist, a careful blend of fruits and spices. Though I largely blame the many extremely poor commercial products for fruitcake's bad rap, it is a shame that many people miss out on what is a luxurious culinary delight and a great tradition.

sis3, do you mind sharing your fruitcake and marzipan recipes? They sound terrific.

I'll be the odd man out - I do not like fruitcake in any form or fashion.

How many different types of fruitcake have you had?

I made one several years ago that all my fruitcake hating family members loved. It had chocolate pieces in it.

This reminds me of the discussions we have here on wallpaper. People say they hate wallpaper, but what they hate are the ugly, cheap wallpapers they have seen in grandma's house.

And at Thanksgiving I turned around two brussels sprouts haters by serving them grilled brussels sprouts.

If you don't like it, you don't like it. It leaves more of the good stuff for the rest of us. The cheapo drug store fruitcakes, which sadly is the only kind many people have been exposed to, are scary and I can understand why someone wouldn't even want to try them. A friend makes a really lovely one that I look forward to every year. Note to self: call Terry and set a date for a tea and fruitcake visit.

I grew up with a mom, aunts and grandmother who all made our family recipe fruitcakes every year in November for Christmas. The recipe has been in our family for generations and is delicious. They have brandy (I believe) in them and then are wrapped in brandy-soaked cheesecloth and stored away until Christmas to "age a bit". But, do I make them myself anymore? Although I love them, no. Most people aren't interested in trying fruitcake and so I get stuck with the majority of it still around for Easter! I try to not overload us with too many sweets during this holiday season{{gwi:807}}. Instead I stick with making another family recipe, delicious coffee cakes that take 2 days to finish. Those, my grandmother's Russian Teaball cookies, our New Mexican Biscochito cookies and Natal's Spiced Pecans are about it for me. We host the big Christmas Day dinner here every year and I usually make an English Trifle in a large footed bowl or my individual Winter Spice Molten Lava Cakes for dessert. But, I do wish my sister lived close by as she still makes the fruitcakes and I could at least get a slice or two every Christmas.
Lynn

{{!gwi}}

This post was edited by lynninnewmexico on Tue, Dec 10, 13 at 12:38

edited

This post was edited by tinam61 on Mon, Dec 9, 13 at 16:47

Oh dear, my fruitcake with chocolate has brandied cherries in it.

maybe a "lighter" version would be appropriate (and DON'T call it "fruit cake"!)

I make candied citrus peel, and have been known to put bits of that into baked goods. Not quite the same thing, but a homage, perhaps

Zesty Marzipan

6oz sugar
6 oz powdered sugar plus extra for dusting surface when rolling marzipan
9 oz almond flour
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
Few drops almond extract if desired
1 egg
1 egg yolk

Sift sugars and almond flour together, then add in orange zest, mix well.
Beat together egg and egg yolk, add almond extract if desired and add to sugar mixture, stir well.
Knead briefly to ensure marzipan is completely mixed and pliable, adding a little orange juice if the mix is too dry, or powdered sugar if too wet. A little extra kneading may make the marzipan more pliable if needed.

It can be wrapped in clear wrap and stored in refrigerator for up to a week.

Looking forward to the fruitcake recipe too, Sis! Thank you!

Rich Fruit Cake

There's a lot of ingredients but you basically just mix them all together! Makes 8" round cake or 7" square. (I have also used this recipe to make a 9" round cake with excellent results)

1 lb 5 oz currants
6 oz raisins
11 oz sultanas/golden raisins
6 oz candied citrus peel
5 oz candied cherries, washed and cut into 4 pieces
1 oz sliced almonds
1 oz almond meal/flour
1 1/2 teaspoons very strong coffee
2 level teaspoons spice mix (your own preference but I use cocoa,cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice and nutmeg)
Pinch of salt
Zest and juice 1 small lemon
10 oz soft dark brown sugar or molasses (I use 1/2 of each)
10 oz butter
12 oz self rising flour
3 fl oz dark rum
6 large eggs
Extra 1 fl oz dark rum for brushing over cake

Line cake pan sides and base with parchment paper and outside of pan sides and base with brown paper (using natural string to secure)
Heat oven to 250F
In large bowl add spices, coffee, almonds, salt, lemon zest, and juice to fruit. Mix well then add rum and leave to soak for at least 24 hours or up to 1 week. I stir it once per day. The aroma is wonderful!
In a second bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy.
Beat eggs one at a time and add to butter mix, adding some flour with each egg. Reserve a small amount of flour to coat fruit by stirring it through fruit mixture.
Gradually add butter/egg mix to fruit mix and stir until well mixed.
Scrape into cake pan making a very slight depression in the center. Cover lightly with circle of parchment paper with small hole cut in center.
Bake in pre-heated 250F oven just above center, until an inserted skewer comes out clean, approx 3 hours. (My 9" cakes have taken up to 5 hours!!)
When cooked leave in oven for a few minutes with the door open. Remove from oven, brush over 1 fl oz of rum over top of cake. Leave in pan until totally cold, or overnight in a cool room.
Remove from pan, wrap completely in parchment paper, then in foil. Store for minimum 4 weeks to mature.
I brush with a little extra rum or brandy every 6 weeks if I store the cake for many months. The cake for this Christmas is over one year old.

Tonight at the market searching for saltines, I happened across the Claxon fruitcake. Yippee!!! Bought a small one and DH and I just enjoyed a couple small slices. It's our guilty pleasure. The Claxon cakes taste like the spumoni at our fave Italian restaurant.

If someone wanted to convince me to eat year-old cake or cake that had been stored in the cellar, they'd have to soak ME in rum first.

Love them! I think only because I was raised on them, watching my mom make them. I buy a small one each year, doctor it up with brandy. I am the only one who eats it.

Maybe that's where we all go wrong with drugstore fruitcake. Maybe they need to sell it along with a bottle of rum and an instruction sheet.