Ever wonder why this cake has become a holiday staple, despite all the jokes about how much people hate it?
Well, let’s start by stripping off the layers of dislike. Up until they began to be mass-produced, fruitcake was a much-beloved special-occasion treat, made with care and considered a rare treat–and a long-lasting one.
The fruit in fruitcake is dried and candied (soaked in sugar), which means it’s well preserved. The cake itself is often made or stored with alcohol too, which in turn kills bacteria. The result? This cake can last. Up to 25 YEARS is the accepted limit (??) on its shelf-life, and apparently it was often traditional to make a cake one Christmas for eating the next. (Yeah. Sure. Why not.) Cultures around the world have their own varieties of fruitcake, with slight variations but equal presence.
So why did it get tied to Christmas? Well, it was reserved for special occasions for centuries, because the ingredients were costly. Fruit, historically, was not cheap, and neither were sugar and butter. It was a favorite cake for weddings, and of course, that most special day of the year–Christmas! So to give a gift of a fruitcake was thoughtful and would have been well received. People could treasure it, savor it, enjoy a bit here and then a bit there without fear of it spoiling.
Where do you come down on fruitcake? Special treat, or dreaded gift? Have you ever tried a homemade variety, or just the mass-produced kind? (I’d be interested in sampling a homemade one sometime! I’ll have to add it to my eventual-holiday-baking list.)
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
A few years ago we searched everywhere for a good tasting fruit cake like we had during our childhood. This year while visiting church family, my husband was given a large one made by a relative of the church member. It was fabulous. When he visited the cook to express his thankfulness, she gave him some chocolate covered fruit cake bites. They are the best things ever!
I LOVE fruitcake! I get a small one (more fruit than cake, of course) at the supermarket each year, but I remember my mother making it years ago. She made so many small loaves for gifts that she had to mix the batter in her roasting pan! She also made something called gumdrop cake, which yes, had chopped-up gumdrops adding color to the cake. Not sure why people continue to diss fruitcake. It’s fabulous with eggnog.
25 years! That’s just incomprehensible! I’ve tried a store bought fruitcake one time, it wasn’t pleasant. Perhaps a homemade version with better fruits and nuts would be good!
From the time I was a small child, my mother always made a fruitcake each year. She would spend about two weeks shelling out the nuts for the cake (2 lbs. of walnuts, 2 lbs. of pecans, and 1 lb. of almonds). On the appointed day, she made the cake in a spring form pan. The fruits she put in her fruitcake were red and green candied cherries, dates, raisins, candied pineapple sometimes. Her recipe also included one or two cups of cold coffee and molasses. My dad would always try to sneak a slice before Christmas, but my mom did not allow sampling before Christmas eve. We ate the cake until there was no more, not even a crumb. My dad loved it and so did I. I have made fruitcake by her recipe several times. Some years, my mom’s fruitcake had so many nuts and fruits in it that there was barely enough batter to hold the cake together. No one cared. We were a family of squirrels, favoring the nuts. As a previous respondent said, I am also from west Texas.
THIS may be the company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They have been making it since 1896
https://collinstreet.com/sliced-deluxe-fruitcake#size=5442
I once had fruitcake from a company located somewhere in
Texas which was absolutely delicious
It had NO citron (the main reason why I don’t eat fruitcake)
It was just dates, cherries, pineapple, pecans, and walnuts
Equally
impressive was the cake part of it.
I cannot remember what company but I would not mind
having a slice now with coffee.
I’ve always loved fruit cake, and there have been very few if any I did not like. I grew up on a West Texas farm in the 50’s and early 60’s. We had a cannery in town for canning summer vegetables like corn and black-eyed peas. In the fall and off season, my mother would go there to can fruit cakes in about a 16 ounce “tin” can.
I’m pretty sure the cans were sealed with the ingredients inside before cooking. At any rate the neat thing about these canned fruit cakes is that we used the can opener on both ends. One lid was used to press the cake out the other end far enough to slice off the size slice you wanted. If my mother was slicing, it was usually about a half inch slice. If I was slicing my own, it was more like a three-fourths inch slice. I loved it and especially those she canned like that.
Another thing is that you could re-use the lid to push the cake slightly back into the can and you had a lid on both ends again, for storing it in the refrigerator, although not as tight as before you opened the can. I didn’t know they would keep for 25 years, but ours never (if ever) lasted much over a week, after we had opened the can!.
I’m Italian so our version is called panettone which isn’t as buttery and involves less red and green fruits, more raisins and dried apricot. I’ve never had homemade fruitcake, but if a tried and true family favorite appears in the comments I will definitely make it. I love trying new things!