Meditations on Fruitcakes (from the Bakery Department)

Okay, fruitcakes can be meditated upon. That makes two things they can be used for. Not being into meditation, I'll continue to use mine for a doorstop.

Rog- Take a sharp knife, use a little artistry, and you have a dandy hockey puck!

I get my hockey pucks at McDonald's. They're already the right shape and size, so I don't have to ruin a good knife.

Poor Noddy. Another well intended thread down the tubes.

Roger--

Meditations meander--that's the nature of the beast. Besides, I'm politically correct and wouldn't think of barring unbaked fruitcakes from any thread of mine.

Do you suppose a half baked fruitcake is more unusual than a fully baked one?

I remember my aunt's fruitcakes when I was a child. She soaked them in rum for about a month. I ate slices of them as fast as I could swallow until someone would make me stop or the fruitcake was all gone. My mother wasn't a fruitcake fan, so she never knew they were dripping with rum. She would have fainted if she had known.

The aunt noticed, however, and would smile at me secretly. To this day, she is still my favorite relative.

Fruitcake has so many ingredients that I don't like. The things never stood a chance with me. Homemade is probably worse than store-bought. They feel heavier. Nasty.

Let's see what's in there - dried fruit - bleccccccccch; rum - bleccccccccch; slivered almonds - bleccccccccccccch. Yup, there's no way I could like fruitcake. I disliked my aunt's homemade honeycake even more. Every year she made some for me and hamburger. Every year we had to find a way to get rid of the stuff.

Now, a good stollen - with my personal modifications - paradise. Raisins, currants, no other fruit, no nuts, a heavy yeasty bread, wrapped in brandy-soaked tea towels. It's like very boozy raisin toast. Yummmmmm.

It is actually rather nice toasted, with sweet butter. Yup. Nice.

and if you've got some eggnog (before the rum) left-over - it makes the most divine french toast!

Hey, Noddy and all. I used to love fruit cake. My aunt made them and soaked them in bourbon. Her kitchen always smelled funny to me...

Wish I hadn't lost my mother-in-law's recipe to Jam Cake...Yum...Yum

Well - I like fruitcake (as opposed to fruitcakes - a totally different kettle of fish!) (although some fruitcakes are entertaining!)

I don't like those tacky boiled ones, but a properly made fruitcake is something I look forward to. I used to make a great one - all glace fruit, and nuts, and alcohol, barely glued together. Maybe I'll have another go!

My first mother-in-law was a closet alcoholic. She made her fruitcakes in September and every time she was nearly finished with a bottle (rum, bourbon, scotch, vodka, gin--didn't matter) she'd soak her fruitcakes with the leavings.


For nigh on 13 years I politely nibbled a slice of Bar Dregs Fruitcake at Christmas. Divorce brings many benefits....

Meditations
I like fruitcake unless it has pecans. I don't know why, but I totally lost my childhood taste for pecans which were the major nuts in our family cooking, being Louisiana in ancestry. (Of course, there might have been some other major nuts, in our family, but we won't go into that today.)

On the other hand, I never used to like stollen, but lately I've become most fond of it.

So - did I grow out of fruitcake or into stollen?

What I don't like is pale fruitcake. Fruitcake should be rich and dark, with rum. Which makes it seem to me that a proper fruitcake is homemade, not a stale commercial door-stop.

Good choice of words, Margo - "entertaining".

Fruitcake is not a baked good. It is a farm implement

Well, I have posted on this matter on other topics so I will be short about it... I love my own dark fruitcake, with my own homemade candied fruit (candied orange peel or lemon), walnuts, raisins, etc., wrapped in cognac soaked cheesecloth. It is fine with me if other people don't like it, I'd rather not give it away.

yep , thats the recipe osso. We make rollers for our seed drills using wheels of a fruitcake like material. very durable. Lasts longer than solid tires on a brush hog.

Oh, you mean you have some leftover?

Meditation
Just came back from a quick trip to Trader Joe's for a stollen. There isn't a whole lot of it left now.