This fruitcake recipe will change your mind about fruitcake forever (2024)
For generations, fruitcake has been the butt of many holiday jokes: likened to a less tasty doorstop, given as a gift to someone you actually hate, etc. The concept of fruitcake reappears in sarcastic holiday conversations year after year. It’s loathed, but it doesn’t have to be.
I never actually knew anyone my age that ever ate fruitcake, largely due to its negative reputation in TV and movies across the decades. This quote from the late, great, Aunt Edna from National Lampoon’s Vacation pretty much sums it up:
Aunt Edna: You’re the ones who sent me the fruitcake for Christmas. It made me so sick!
Ellen: Oh—we’re sorry. We thought you enjoyed fruitcake.
Aunt Edna: Do you enjoy throwing up every five minutes, Claude?
So, we get it. It’s gross. It’s dry. The “fruit” inside it is possibly just chippings of Yankee Candle wax. But recently, the fruitcake game changed for me forever.
See, fruitcake appears on my family’s holiday table every year, and I’m not kidding when I say that it is an absolute showstopper. Part of me wondered if people were just trying to be polite when they raved about it. But when you’re being polite about food you don’t actually like, you’re going to take one, maybe two bites, and then make a big to-do about how full you are. You might even ask to have it wrapped up “to go” to add color to your fibs.
Instead, what I have observed over the years is a whole group of guests grabbing multiple slices of this fruitcake, eating every last crumb, and then talking excitedly about it. I’ve never heard people talk about a fruitcake the way people talk about this fruitcake. I had never touched the stuff until last year when I reached for a slice to see what the hype was about.
And then I understood. It’s not that fruitcake as a concept is delicious–it’s that this fruitcake is delicious. The recipe I’m about to share is easily 70+ years old. My late, great Aunt Jane was the fruitcake master. Like all of us, she enjoyed expressing love through dishes served with a heavy side of sass. In my aunt’s small Midwestern farm town this fruitcake was her claim to fame, and she didn’t want just anyone getting the accolades that belonged to her.
At the time she passed this recipe down to my mom, I’m sure the very idea of publishing her treasured recipe on the internet would have been considered sacrilege. But when we let people take their recipes to the grave, we all miss out. I believe in sharing the wealth and keeping memories of our loved ones alive by continuing to use their recipes after they are gone.
2 (16-oz.) jars maraschino cherries, without stems, drained
5½ cups walnut or pecan halves
6 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup light rum
8 oz. Karo light corn syrup
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two 9x5” loaf pans with aluminum foil, then grease them well with shortening. Be careful not to poke holes in the foil while greasing—if you do, simply add another layer of foil and grease again.
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In a very large mixing bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients, and then mix in your fruits and nuts. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs and rum. Pour that mixture over the fruit mixture until all ingredients are incorporated and coated. Fill bread pans evenly while pressing the mixture down firmly with the back of a fork or spoon to eliminate air pockets.
Bake the loaves on the center rack of the oven for 1 hour and 45 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove the pans and cool them for 15 minutes, then lift the cakes by the foil to transport them onto cake racks. Glaze the cakes by brushing Karo syrup on the tops and sides.
When glazed cakes are completely cool, wrap each tightly in wax or parchment paper and store in the refrigerator. To serve, cut slices with a serrated knife, then cut each slice in half. Enjoy, and welcome fruitcake back to the holiday party—indefinitely!
Fruitcake lasts longer than most other cakes because it is filled with nuts and candied fruit. It will last even longer if you sprinkle it with a spirit like brandy.
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.
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.
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.
How to Store Fruitcake Without Alcohol? Fruitcake without alcohol won't last as long, however, its shelf life can still be maximized through proper storage techniques. Our fruitcake can last up to one month on your countertop, four months in the fridge, and six months in the freezer.
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.
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.
“Foods with low amounts of moisture, like fruitcakes and Twinkies, are resistant to the growth of microorganisms because you need a certain amount of moisture for spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms to grow,” Le explains.
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.
Fred's Sirieix's fiancée is known affectionately as 'Fruitcake'. As Fred recalled on the show, he met her while walking down the street in Peckham and was captivated by her eyes and smile.
Fruitcake has European origins, easily traceable to the English “plumb” cake, filled with dried fruit and candied citrus, dense, heavy, and requiring long baking times. It came to America with seventeenth-century English colonists.
Just mix 1 part white vinegar with 3 parts water, dip your fruits and vegetables, and then wash them gently but thoroughly. Vinegar not only prevents mold buildup and rotting, but also helps get rid of pesticides on conventionally grown produce and fruit, and kills bacteria that could be clinging on your vegetables.
How long do you want to preserve the cakes for? In industry all sorts of chemical preservatives are used. For the home baker extending shelf life by a few days can be achieved by adding glycerine or golden syrup to the cake batter.
Master the art of storage by tightly wrapping your fruitcake in parchment paper and foil. Store it in a cool, dark place, allowing the flavors to intensify. To expedite the process, consider placing the wrapped cake in the refrigerator for a day or two, mimicking the effects of extended aging.
Introduction: My name is Errol Quitzon, I am a fair, cute, fancy, clean, attractive, sparkling, kind person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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