Best Fruitcake Ever



I've never actually had fruitcake, so I can't really knock it. I can tell you it looks gross, but that's about it. But I hear lots of people dislike it intensely, especially when received as a gift. This one might not irritate your friends and family any less, but at the very least it should get points for creativity. It comes with its own envelope, so you can mail it right to the lucky recipient. I actually might send one to my grandma... she loves quirky stuff like this.

Link via Archie McPhee

i think the reason that people dislike REAL fruitcake is because they are introduced to it as children, and it is usually booze-soaked... most kids can't put the dried fruit and rum flavors together - at least that's my excuse - in my locale, there is lots of British Isles descendants, and it's an Xmas fave... as an adult i was re-introduced to it and can say that there are some that ROCK, and others that SUCK - it's up to the ingredients and the baker, like everything else - don't knock it til you've tried a real one
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I love fruitcake, that stuff is delicious and all too unfairly maligned. I brought one in for a social function the other day and only one other person besides me touched it - most everyone else admitted they had no idea what one tasted like, but were pretty sure they wouldn't like it ... fools!

They -do- offer a lot of opportunity for silliness, though, and that inflatable fruitcake is a great example =) Another bit of fruitcake humor that always makes me grin comes from this cartoon ("Ed, Edd n Eddy") where one of the characters once says something about how his family "parades" their "ancestral fruitcake" around every Christmas ... I keep trying to get that tradition established in my own family but nobody ever seems to go for it, alas!
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How good a fruitcake is depends on how much Southern Comfort or Bourbon is in the recipe. Of course, if you are making fruitcake and have to keep checking the alcohol for quality, the fruitcake will probably taste bad, but by then who cares?
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One thing that gave fruitcake a bad name is people would make it with citrus peel. That gives it a tart, sour taste.

Good fruitcake is sweet, and very rummy. My mother and grandmother used to make the absolute best, but they had to start it in September to have it ready by Christmas.
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I really don't understand this hatred toward fruitcake. Perhaps people who hate it have only had really shitty ones. My mother-in-law makes the most AWESOME fruitcake and I look forward to it every year.
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As my dad would say, "If you don't like it, you don't know what's good for you'."

The ultra-processed bricks they sell in supermarkets are pretty lame, but good fruitcake is plenty tasty.

We buy my dad one every year from the monks (yeah, real monks) at The Abbey of the Genessee in Western NY (plug: www.geneseeabbey.org/bread-store2.html). Awful yummy good.
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I don't normally go around trying fruit cake, especially now that I am an adult and no one can make me, but when I was forced to "have a taste", I always preferred the boozier ones, though I never liked them either. But I am one of those people that doesn't like fruit in dessert unless it's something really special.
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I haven't had a fruitcake since I was a kid. My grandmother used to give them to the family for gifts. I liked them a lot, though these weren't alcoholic. I didn't even know that people made them with rum until I read this post... I should try that now that I'm all grown up! But yeah, I never could figure out why people seem to think such a delicious food is so awful. Oh well -- more for me!
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A good homemade fruitcake is a real treat, especially with the right balance of juicy fruits and nuts and batter, with a hint of rum. The nasty dry crap you get in the store is what gives the confection a bad name.

The chairman of the food pantry I volunteer for does an incredible fruitcake with huge chunks of pecans and fresh fruit and orange slice candy in it. You don't so much cut slices of it as spoon gobs of it onto your plate, because it's soaked with orange juice. I drool just remembering it! He does it without alcohol, but I bet a splash of Cointreau would elevate it to penultimate perfection.

--TwoDragons
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