Last night I was searching for something, a lone cookie, some candy, something and then I ran across the fruitcake. As always, I baked fruitcakes for Christmas. I am a firm defender of fruitcakes. They respond like that old computer joke about "garbage in, garbage out." Same with a fruitcake. Unless you go the extra mile to get beautiful dried fruit, plump raisins, and a nice rum; unless you are will to bake it low and slow for several hours, you get garbage out. But put in the effort and months later you still have a lovely sweet snack.
I felt a bit like Lord Carnarvon unwrapping a mummy. There were three layers of aluminium foil. Four or five wrappings of cling film. Finally rum soaked cheesecloth that needed another soaking. Finally, the fruitcake. I sliced it, inspected it, and broke off a small corner for just a careful taste. (I have heard those stories of people finding fruitcakes 10 or 12 years later and eating them, but one always wants to check.)
It was delicious, firm, moist and studded with fruit. I poured a cup of coffee and had a late-night sweet. Another reason one should make Christmas fruitcake.
That looks divine and even the thought of the smell of rum makes me smile and feel warm and cosseted.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did in fact receive a Lord Carnarvon fruitcake for Christmas and had to sadly relegate it to the compost heap. Perhaps it was a bad year for fruitcake at Highclere.
I love a good fruitcake made patiently with superb ingredients. Of course the supermarket ones made with nasty emerald green candied fruit are awful. So are Lunchables, I understand. One is not obligated to eat either, and the alternatives are so much more pleasing. RD
ReplyDeleteI have two in the refrigerator, both homemade – one to a recipe by Nigella Lawson (not the best fruitcake I've ever had but passable) and the other made to an old "Bero" Dundee cake repipe. Having been in Atlanta almost 21 years, I mix and feed my cakes with bourbon. (I used to use my father-in-law's single malt but he put a stop to that!)
ReplyDeleteFruit Cake fell into such ill repute that I never admitted to anyone my deep devotion to it as the iconic holiday treat of my childhood. Please share your recipe.
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