Fruit Cake

[jfalkon]

Here in the USA the fruit cake is the but of many holiday jokes. It has a reputation for being the most disgusting desert known to mankind. What do you think?

 

I like them. I even make my own and eat them. Am I a complete freak?

[Tom]

Fruit cake.....fresh, they aren't bad at all....but try eating one that was sent through the mail...over seas...to a military base???....three months old and hard as a rock if your lucky

 

A freak???...nope, just a little fruity, kinda like the rest of the world

 

Hugs,

Tom

[Graeme]

I think I need a translation here. The fruit cake I know of (and quite like) is not a dessert -- it's a cake. Wedding cakes are traditionally fruit cakes, for example.

 

Are you talking about a Christmas pudding? Which is usually a heavily fruit based steamed dessert served with custard (brandy custard if you're lucky) and cream. Also very yummy

[Hylas]

I hates it.

 

The first time I tried it. I ate a few crumbs then spat it out. LMAO

[Menzoberranzen]

I think I need a translation here. The fruit cake I know of (and quite like) is not a dessert -- it's a cake. Wedding cakes are traditionally fruit cakes, for example.

 

Are you talking about a Christmas pudding? Which is usually a heavily fruit based steamed dessert served with custard (brandy custard if you're lucky) and cream. Also very yummy

 

It's like a very thick (either dark or light) cake with chunks of fruit in it and marizpan icing (if you're lucky.) It's called the same here in the UK so I dunno what you guys would call it in Austrailia.

 

I personally can't abide the little chunks of fruit, but I attended Christmas at a friends house a couple years ago, and here mother could eat an entire fruit cake in a night. All in all, I think the British one with *real* marzipan and saturated with drambuie is far better than the American one, but I still don't like the little chunks inside. I have been known to take a slice just for the icing though...

 

Menzo (who adores marzipan)

[Drewbie]

Never tried to eat it.

[Mikie]

Never tried to eat it.

Yeah, me neither.

[colinian]

I like fruitcake, the one from the Monastery Bakery of the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. Most of the others I've tried range from fair through aren't very good to downright toxic.

 

Colin

[Krista]

I like the taste of my fruitcakes, but some that I've tried from my sister, aunts, grandmothers have been awful... I don't know how they make their fruit cakes, but it is nothing like mine.. lol.. but the family usually eat the ones I send them, or they say they do. I love baking so its one of the things I waste time doing.

 

 

Krista

[jfalkon]

I think I need a translation here. The fruit cake I know of (and quite like) is not a dessert -- it's a cake. Wedding cakes are traditionally fruit cakes, for example.

 

Are you talking about a Christmas pudding? Which is usually a heavily fruit based steamed dessert served with custard (brandy custard if you're lucky) and cream. Also very yummy

 

Christmas puding sound pretty good but our cakes are actualy baked goods. Here fruit cakes are heavy cakes with lots of cut up dried and/or fresh fruit in them. There are more ways to make fruit cake than I can count. The only consistent thing seems to be that they have chunks of fruit in them and an indefinite shelf life. (They can dry out and harden though.)

 

I have to admit that the chunks of fruit look a little intimidating. The cakes you can get at the super markets often have brightly colored chunks that are barely recognizable as fruit. They look more like misshapen jelly beans.

 

Maybe the more apropriate question here is what makes a good fruit cake since there are so many different kinds.

[BeaStKid]

I don't like the 'fruit' in the cake, but I do like just the cake...

[Matt]

i LOVE fruitcake - my gran's fruitcake is amazing, she's been baking it for years, she's 90

 

my dad makes a fruit cake for our christmas cake too - in october.. then feeds it with brandy twice a week until christmas THAT is a nice cake, with marzipan and icing, and some holly or something

[JamesSavik]

I have a recipe for fruitcake that removes the candied cherries and stuff that makes it suck. Oh yeah.. I add choclate chips too.

 

However it is no longer a fruitcake. It is more properly called a nutcake which is, IMHO, much better than ordinary fruitcake and entirely appropriate for me to make.

[JamesSavik]

Fruit cake.....fresh, they aren't bad at all....but try eating one that was sent through the mail...over seas...to a military base???....three months old and hard as a rock if your lucky

 

I used to keep on around the shop to drive nails with in case I mislaid my hammer.

[glomph]

I like fruitcake, the one from the Monastery Bakery of the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia.

 

Those are good. They're moist and don't have so much dried fruit, so maybe some of the guys here who don't so much like fruitcake would find them tolerable.

 

My grandmother was a really good cook, but her fruitcakes weren't very good. I was an adult before I discovered that there were fruitcakes I could enjoy, at least in small doses.

[Adrian Michaels]

I've had homemade fruitcake a number of times, and it's always been pretty good. Of course, all of them were different, so I suppose it's all how it's made...

 

I did however, have a horrible experience with fruitcake when it was literally just a mushy cake with a can of fruit cocktail thrown in... Erm... it looked like, um... baked vomit *hides*

 

BUT, the store bought fruitcakes just crack me up, beacuse they often use those super fake candied cherries and stuff, the ones that have been pickled in Red no. 5 for about 50 years. I think they throw in a few Legos as well.

[FrenchCanadian]

Umm, personally I don't like those. Ain't it just ruin a dessert to put fruits in them. Ain't a dessert is supposed to be sweet.

 

But I'm not a good example when it comes to foods, I'm a very and I mean *very* picky eater.

[TheZot]

Apparently some people just haven't had good fruitcake. (I think the invention of that obnoxiously green and red candied fruit, and modern maraschino cherries, is what truly did the thing in) Dense, packed with nuts and dried fruits, and soaked with good brandy... Mmmm!

 

Though I'll grant, if you had your first piece young, the taste of the alcohol can easily put you off it for ages. It's worth finding some well-made fruitcake and having another try.

[rknapp]

Never had it.

[Adrian Michaels]

I honestly just love the concept:

 

"Come sir, let us take this pastry, and then dunk it in alcohol!"

[Hylas]

Though I'll grant, if you had your first piece young, the taste of the alcohol can easily put you off it for ages. It's worth finding some well-made fruitcake and having another try.

 

I think you may be right. The first time I tried fruit cake, I was like... um 8 or something. And back then even beer tasted icky. Ever since, I've avoided it.

 

I'll try it again. Who knows, maybe my adult taste buds will like it. But yeah, I think not. ;P I don't even like spirits. Much less spirits on pastry.

[TheZot]

I don't even like spirits. Much less spirits on pastry.

If there's pastry involved in fruit cake, someone's done something terribly, horribly wrong.

 

I bet you'll find you do rather like spirits with your pastry. Vanilla, for example. (It's usually 30 or 40 proof) And if you insist on it actually being distilled as a flavoring rather than just as a solvent, Frangelico (hazelnut liquor) and Grand Marnier (orange) are both wonderful in things with pastry. Or general baked goods, they both make amazing frosting flavors, though my current favorite is Bailey's mixed into a light whipped pastry cream for cream puff filling. Mmmmmm!

 

Though that's all off-topic, so we shan't talk about it any more, even if I am feeling the urge to go bake something tomorrow...

[JamesSavik]

There's an old joke that says that it wasn't radium or polonium that killed Marie Curie (aka Madam Curie): it was a decades old fruitcake that had been gifted and regifted around the world.

[colinian]

Those are good. They're moist and don't have so much dried fruit, so maybe some of the guys here who don't so much like fruitcake would find them tolerable...

What we do is slice it very, very thin or really, really thick. Both ways make it fun to eat. It's better if you have hot coffee or tea with it to cut the sweetness. It's very sweet, but in a good way.

 

Colin

[Umbathri]

Ok cake good