Nothing brings in the holiday season like a fruitcake, whether it's fresh or regifted.
For several decades, the delicacy has been the butt of many holiday jokes and still gets a bad rap as one of the "worst" gifts to receive on Christmas.
According to the Swiss Colony bakery, a fruitcake is a cake that is filled with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices. The cake is also sometimes soaked in spirits or iced on top, depending on what region or country you're from.
The dessert is also known for its longevity, as the combination of sugar, low moisture ingredients and high-proof spirits make fruitcakessome of the longest-lasting foods in the world. In 2017, a fruitcake from Robert Scott's expedition in Antarctica was found untouched after106 years in "almost" edible condition
When were fruitcakes 'invented?'
The cake has existed in one form or another since Roman times. Potica bakery writes that ancient Romans would mash barley, pomegranate seeds, raisins, and pine nuts were combined to make a dessert called"Satura," valuing its long shelf life.
Over time, ingredients from European colonies were added, including sugar, candied fruit from the Middle East, various spices, and liquor, to give us a version most similar to the modern fruitcake we see today.
Fruitcakes in Europe still resemble the ones seen in the Middle Ages, whereas British and American delicacies lean more into the cake aspect.
It's hard to determine exactly when fruitcake became associated with the holidays; however, it is believed that it started it happened during the 18thand 19thcenturies when the cost of the ingredients was too expensive for most households to afford.
"Considered an indulgence, fruit cake was thus reserved for special occasions and holidays," Potica bakery writes. "As time went on, others began to credit Truman Capote’s 1956 short story, “A Christmas Memory,” which became most interesting when the older woman in the narrative looked out her window and exclaimed that it was 'fruit cake weather.'"
Why does fruitcake have a bad reputation?
Once again, it's hard to pinpoint the moment that fruitcake became a running holiday joke to Americans. In a USA Today article, they claim it might have started sometime between the early 20th century, identifying two specific factors:
When commercial mass production of mail order fruitcakes resulted in dry bricks being delivered to people's homes as a last-minute Christmas gift.
When Johnny Carson made his infamous joke on"The Tonight Show"about how there's only one fruitcake in the world and it's passed from family to family.
Are fruitcakes actually good? How can I make them good?
When it comes to finding fruitcake food, your taste buds will have to be the judge of that. However, there are ways to perfect the recipe to your liking.
Every year, fruitcake enthusiasts from around the country attempt to make the dessert more palatable to modern tastes, in an effort to elevate the fruitcake back to its status of official holiday dessert.
Some suggest less batter and more fruit for sweetness, while others recommend using a batter that is fluffier to avoid a dense, bread-like consistency. According toThe New York Times' test kitchen, the solution to better fruitcake is "showering the cake in whiskey."
When commercial mass production of mail order fruitcakes resulted in dry bricks being delivered to people's homes as a last-minute Christmas gift. When Johnny Carson made his infamous joke on "The Tonight Show"about how there's only one fruitcake in the world and it's passed from family to family.
Part of the reason this dense, often dry cake has the reputation it does is due to that no one finds that dried fruit in the middle to be appealing. Secondly, the actual cake itself has a minimal flavor and required at least one cup of tea - if not several - in order to get through just a few bites.
Jenkins, a low-level employee at the city's famed fruitcake company, the Collin Street Bakery, embezzled $17 million from 2004 to 2013, spending the money on cars, trips, watches, and jewelry—all so that he could keep up appearances with the upper crust of his town of 24,000.
A forerunner of the fruitcake actually fueled Ancient Roman warriors who carried a mixture of barley, pomegranate seeds, nuts, and raisins mixed with honeyed wine. The cakes — called satura — sustained them through their long marches to the furthest corners of the empire.
At first, the cakes were mainly filled with nuts. When sugar became more widely available, candied preserved fruits were added. The addition of sugar made the dessert so “sinfully rich” that the church briefly banned fruitcake in the 1700s.
: a foolish or eccentric person. The roommate once thought of as a fruitcake is the candidate likeliest to be our next Secretary of State. Erich Segal. also, sometimes offensive : someone who is not mentally sound.
How infamous bakery fraud fuels Texas tourism and economy. Production is back on for Fruitcake—the true-crime movie telling the story of the nine-year-long, $17 million embezzlement scandal perpetrated by Collin Street Bakery's Financial Controller, Sandy Jenkins.
Today, citrus fruits are cheaper and no longer a sign of luxury. Plus, companies that mass-produce fruitcakes aren't known for using these authentic flavors and ingredients at all. Most companies use dried cherries and liquor flavoring. The result can be less than appetizing.
Marie Rudisill died in Hudson, Florida, on November 3, 2006, at the age of 95, just before the publication date of her last book, Ask the Fruitcake Lady: Everything You Would Already Know If You Had Any Sense, on November 7.
Most recently, Los Angeles director Max Winkler announced his plans to make a movie on the White Collar case of an accountant who stole $17 million from a Texas-based bakery. The fraud shook the famed family-run Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana.
The tradition of fruit cakes can be traced back to ancient Rome, where they were considered a symbol of good luck and prosperity. However, it was in medieval Europe that the fruit cake truly took root as a festive delicacy.
A Victorian superstition states that placing a piece of fruit cake under one's pillow will cause a dream of their future spouse. If food is being served at tea-time, the person to take the last piece of cake from the plate will be the first to get married.
If a friend calls you a fruitcake, they are telling you that you said or did something stupid. They could be trying to get a rise out of you. It isn't always an insult, but most of the time it is.
Its origins go as far back as the Middle Ages, when dried fruits became more widely available. The cost of ingredients was so high that in the 17th and 18th-century fruitcakes were only made for special occasions, such as weddings and holidays, particularly in Victorian England.
We might like to pretend, based on its name, that fruitcake is a reasonably healthy sweet option, however this is not the case. Fruitcake tends to have high butter, sugar and syrup content, making it high in both fat and calorie content. The same goes for Panettone- the Italian bread that has become a holiday favorite.
Any fruitcake you buy is perfectly delicious to eat right out of the package, and has been quietly ripening in refrigeration for a while before shipping (sealed, of course, to stay moist). But many folks like to moisten it further with one element most manufacturers leave out: alcohol.
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