NATIONAL REVIEW DEFENDS FRUITCAKE

December 21, 2018 5:17 AM

NATIONAL REVIEW DEFENDS FRUITCAKE

"MAKE FRUITCAKE GREAT AGAIN"

posted by clawsoon (68 comments total)

Confusing that USA Fruitcake is different to what UK calls a Fruitcake, but the picture at the top of the article depicts something else entirely bearing no relation to either.
posted by memebake at 5:34 AM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

With its utter blandness, I can't imagine a more suitable food for the nerdiest white supremacist publication out there.

I guess they're owning the Marxist libs by eating cardboard.
posted by Ouverture at 5:38 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

With any luck this will become a major focus of the culture wars, with the angriest of conservatives choking down fruitcake solely to stick it to the libs.
posted by clawsoon at 5:41 AM on December 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

This is a travesty of a column, shaming us for buying the wrong fruitcakes but failing to show us how to make a proper one. A recipe is necessary here.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

Loudly letting all the conservatives know that I am extremely triggered whenever I see a real patriot eat fruitcake for every meal.
posted by Ouverture at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2018 [24 favorites]

With its utter blandness

I don't think we've been eating the same fruitcakes.

Although if fruitcakes are vichy now I don't know what to do.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:47 AM on December 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

This is a travesty of a column, shaming us for buying the wrong fruitcakes but failing to show us how to make a proper one. A recipe is necessary here.

Look up literally any UK or Australian fruitcake recipe then convert from normal units to American units.

The secret is brandy! A good fruitcake contains brandy, which is why American fruitcakes suck.
posted by Merus at 5:54 AM on December 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

A recipe. I'm getting the impression that a lot of alcohol is involved. You soak the thing in alcohol, and you also let fruit sit in moist conditions at room temperature for a month.

And Queen Victoria said she let hers sit for a year as a sign of modesty and restraint. Pfft. She just wanted to get extra soused.

I'm not sure if the author has tried the fruitcake being lauded, or if they're just doing a paean to craft and patience and how much better things were in the glorious past.

Perhaps, in the different kinds of fruitcakes, we're also seeing a split between two branches of the conservative movement: Booze Conservatives and Prohibition Conservatives.
posted by clawsoon at 5:59 AM on December 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

"The road to fruitcake’s fall from grace is paved with mass production."
"...in our culinary generation, we are often also suffering time bankruptcy."
"Americans especially have lost their affinity for pungency — chocolate commercials boast their products’ etherealism, the way it melts on your tongue; birthday cakes have switched from having icing that’s dense enough to fill potholes to a delicate dollop that could blow away with a gust of wind, and that is conservatively sweetened. Just like fashion, cuisines trend and our palettes adjust to what’s in vogue."

Yet another in a long, long list of articles in which conservatives have weird culture war obsessions with changes wrought by capitalism, but they cannot bear to name their enemy.
posted by gauche at 6:04 AM on December 21, 2018 [36 favorites]

I chose this year to try my hand at making fruitcake for the first time, and now I feel kind of dirty for doing something the National Review is championing. Been soaking the fruit in booze all week, planning to bake tomorrow. Maybe I'll spell out MEDICARE FOR ALL in blanched almonds on top of mine, just to make my cake position clear.
posted by sldownard at 6:07 AM on December 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

This could as easily have been a headline for one of the megathreads.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:19 AM on December 21, 2018 [20 favorites]

I promise it is okay to like foods even if some people whose politics you disagree with like them too.
posted by eponym at 6:19 AM on December 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

> This is a travesty of a column, shaming us for buying the wrong fruitcakes but failing to show us how to make a proper one. A recipe is necessary here.

It's the National Review. The closest to a recipe they're going to provide is an editor's recommendation to tell your mother or wife to cook for you.
posted by at by at 6:20 AM on December 21, 2018 [24 favorites]

And the National Review continues its own tradition of being useless for anything besides pointing and laughing at.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:23 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Friends, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come has just shown me a future in which the editors of National Review tearfully choke down fruitcake every Christmas as the rest of us eat as many churros as we can get our hands on. Excelsior.
posted by duffell at 6:24 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

"I had been secretly doubting some of my liberal convictions for years. I kept my doubts to myself. Nothing that I couldn't explain away. But when liberal tribalism came for my beloved fruitcake, I realized with regret that the time had come to part ways. I poured another brandy on my fruitcake and took my leave."
posted by clawsoon at 6:30 AM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

I confess, I love fruitcake. When I lived in TX, I got it from the Collins St Bakery in Corsicana. It's made with Texas pecans (that's "pē-cahns", yankees), mmmmm!
posted by ubiquity at 6:32 AM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

that's "pē-cahns", yankees

About that...
posted by uncleozzy at 6:36 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

So is it important that it be brandy rather than rum? Does it have to be good brandy or is the cheap stuff going to be as good since there are so many other flavors? Are fruit brandies appropriate?
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:38 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

fruitcake is good as long as it doesn't have that awful candied orange peel in it. Those are little bitter cubes of nastiness and I have no idea why anyone has made them ever.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 7:07 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

My friend Kim sends me home made fruit cake every year and it is amaaaazing
posted by PinkMoose at 7:12 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

And Queen Victoria said she let hers sit for a year as a sign of modesty and restraint. Pfft. She just wanted to get extra soused.

The trick is to start next year's fruitcake from the mother of this year's. That way it eventually starts making its own brandy!
posted by traveler_ at 7:14 AM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Cheap brandy is fine. Remember that it's marinating a load of dried fruit anyway, so don't waste the good stuff. Not that anyone drinks brandy much these days.

Having lived in northern England quite a bit in the past, I rather like my fruit cake buttered, preferably with a bit of cheddar so mature it tastes like weedkiller.
posted by pipeski at 7:16 AM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

I am embarrassed to say my first thought was, "Yikes, a two new POTUS threads in one week?"
posted by effluvia at 7:18 AM on December 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

I made my own fruitcake for the first time this year. My grandmother made one in India every year and I can confirm that lots of alcohol was involved. For my first try, I made this BBC Good Food version. It came out looking quite good and is now sitting in my pantry area being doused with brandy every two weeks. I'll report back after Christmas.
posted by peacheater at 7:25 AM on December 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Fruitcake is wonderful. GF fruitcake is also astonishingly expensive. Like what the hell?! So mostly I just have brandy and remember fruitcakes past. Though I gotta say I really miss panettone, which due to the texture, is impossible to replicate without gluten.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:27 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

My mother loves fruitcake, even the nasty store bought variety.

But, and much better, she also loves mincemeat pie, and I'd heartily recommend that particular white people food over fruitcake. At least as long as you make your own mincemeat instead of grabbing a jar of Nonesuch or some other similar abomination.
posted by sotonohito at 7:39 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

"The road to fruitcake’s fall from grace is paved with mass production."
"...in our culinary generation, we are often also suffering time bankruptcy."
"Americans especially have lost their affinity for pungency — chocolate commercials boast their products’ etherealism, the way it melts on your tongue; birthday cakes have switched from having icing that’s dense enough to fill potholes to a delicate dollop that could blow away with a gust of wind, and that is conservatively sweetened. Just like fashion, cuisines trend and our palettes adjust to what’s in vogue."

Yet another in a long, long list of articles in which conservatives have weird culture war obsessions with changes wrought by capitalism, but they cannot bear to name their enemy.

That's a pretty great observation. Weird how folks who hate change consider themselves the biggest supporters of the largest change agent in human history.

That said, I bet that's going to change going forward. Trumpism has demonstrated that the Trump Rump supporters don't give a shit about free markets if they get to hate the right people. They're just confused Authoritarians looking for a leader. You pair that with a more competent Fascist who funds infrastructure and job projects for his/her supporters and you've got a real problem for this country.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:40 AM on December 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

You know that cheap fruitcake at Riteaid? I like it toasted lightly, with butter. I apologize.

I have had real homemade fruitcake and it is indeed boozy and delicious, and a different food entirely.

Where's Wordshore, it seems like his kind of discussion.
posted by theora55 at 7:42 AM on December 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

We were often given fruitcakes and they never contained nuts and that was when I first suspected that everything was a lie, especially common idioms regarding baked goods and sanity.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:49 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

"MAKE FRUITCAKE GREAT AGAIN"

I prefer: MAKE FRUIT CAKE AGAIN
posted by chavenet at 7:53 AM on December 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

Geeze. Why the hell does everything have to be political?

Lets all say it together: FRUITCAKE IS NOT POLITICAL.

I'm gonna enjoy my homemade boozy fruitcake this Christmas as I do every year up here in frozen socialist Canukistan. Perhaps while singing a rousing chorus of L'Internationale.

À chacun son goût!
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:17 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

I am now gonna make a glorious fruitcake to serve at Christmas just to fuck with my National Review-reading relatives
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:23 AM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

I like (homemade) fruitcake but I don't get the article. Its sole photo is something that is clearly not fruitcake, it complains about such things as chocolate melting in the mouth (what else would chocolate do?), and it gratuitously throws in a bunch of long words and trite phrases:

* Rembrandt-esque
* zeitgeist
* pearls before swine
* Sacré bleu!

It's like a parody of the bowtie kind of conservative.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:42 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Mine is a Prohibition recipe. I inherited it via my mother's grandmother, who was a "Gibson Girl" socialite, but I've modified it to add more fruit. There's no alcohol. If you soak this in alcohol for longer than it takes to soak in and make it to your mouth, it will go moldy. If they stay dry, however, they are edible for up to a year (if a little dry.) Here we go:

First day: mix two cups of sugar, 1 pound of raisins, 1 pound of dates*, and up to 3 pounds of mixed candied or glacé fruit*, 1 teaspoon each: ground cloves, cinnamon, cadamom, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, salt. Add a quart of boiling water and bring to a boil while stirring; simmer for 30 minutes, then take off the heat and stir in 2 pats of butter or shortening. Cover and allow to sit off the heat overnight or at least 8 hours.

Second day: Butter and line with greased parchment a baking pan OR spray a pre-fab nonstick disposable pan with cooking spray*. Standard recipe will make about 3 2-pound loaf pans or 6-7 1-pound small loaf pans, more if you increased the fruit. Preheat oven to 250F; if the oven runs too hot they will be tough. Low and slow is key.

To the mixture, stir in 1/2 pound chopped nuts (traditionally walnuts, but typical in my family was pecans and this year it was pistachios) and a jar of maraschino or canned cherries including the juice*, then two eggs, then gradually 4 cups of cake flour (not regular flour or you'll make a fruit-flavored brick) then a tablespoon of baking soda. You can decorate the tops with whatever will survive the oven, like extra candied fruit; they will puff a little but won't overflow. Bake 3 hours; a knife will come out mostly clean. Cool before you wrap these; they mail well!

Please pass this recipe on. It is unlikely I will have younger relatives who will bake these, so hope me Metafilter, keep it going!

*My mix is usually red and green glacé cherries, glacé pineapple, currants, candied orange and lemon peel, prunes, and apricots. ABSOLUTELY NO CITRON. Don't buy the "mixed candied fruit" because it has citron in it. Citron is why people don't like fruitcake because it tastes like bug-repelling candles. If you increase the fruit to more than 3 pounds you need to increase the flour/eggs/baking soda proportionally to compensate, but it can absorb up to about 3 pounds.

*If chopping dates is miserable, your knives aren't sharp enough. Kitchen shears dipped in hot water also work well.

* They pop right out from the disposable pans that come with a nonstick coating, but I add spray grease to make sure. You can also do these in greased cupcake wrappers (reduce bake time by 30 minutes.)

* I like the symbolism of using fruit from summer in the dead of winter at the solstice, so I use a pint of my own cherries. But if you haven't got that, store bought is fine. Morello cherries from Trader Joe's make the whole thing faintly purple!
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:55 AM on December 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

previously in Metafilter on fruitcakes
posted by mwhybark at 9:01 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

You know that cheap fruitcake at Riteaid? I like it toasted lightly, with butter. I apologize.

I like fruitcake, even the cheap kind, and have many times gladly taken it off the hands of gift basket recipients. The great thing about liking fruitcake is that people will regift it to you for free, or will talk openly about hating it and you can be shamelessly all like "Hey, you don't have to throw it out - I'll take it," and they're always glad to oblige.

A lot of the cheaper ones are on the dry side so THANK YOU FOR THE TOASTED IN BUTTER SUGGESTION. This is life-changing.

With any luck this will become a major focus of the culture wars, with the angriest of conservatives choking down fruitcake solely to stick it to the libs.

I'm pretty sure that this wasn't about food at all and the National Review is just trying to bring back "fruitcake" as a homophobic slur.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:03 AM on December 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

But, and much better, she also loves mincemeat pie, and I'd heartily recommend that particular white people food over fruitcake. At least as long as you make your own mincemeat instead of grabbing a jar of Nonesuch or some other similar abomination.

Do you have any idea how many minces die needlessly every year because white people want pie?

SAVE THE MINCES.
posted by delfin at 9:04 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh man cheap dry fruitcake! Or panettone. Try it as a French toast, you'll thank me!
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:06 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Sacrebleu, someone wrote "Sacré Bleu", which does exist but is a bit unusual. Crédieu, it's like they don't actually speak French.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:06 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh man cheap dry fruitcake! Or panettone. Try it as a French toast, you'll thank me!

Brilliant idea!

I once had a panzanella salad that used panettone in place of bread and it was fantastic.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:09 AM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fruitcake was my first experience as a child with food that lasted (apparently) forever without being frozen or even refrigerated, and I didn’t trust it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:21 AM on December 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

just to make my cake position clear.

This is my personal cake position.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

that's "pē-cahns", yankees

About that

After reading the linked article, I have now said "pecan" enough times that it no longer sounds like a real word and I can't remember how I've pronounced it all my life.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:12 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

I will not post my recipe for reasons that become clear in the latter half of the comment here.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:15 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

The earliest I ever heard of fruitcake was the cliche "nuttier than a fruitcake" (many years before I tasted any). Which considering the current state of 'Conservative' Politics is TOO DAMN APPROPRIATE for the National Review.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:22 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

So is it important that it be brandy rather than rum? Does it have to be good brandy or is the cheap stuff going to be as good since there are so many other flavors? Are fruit brandies appropriate?
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:38 AM on December 21

It doesn't have to be brandy. I've done it with B&B (Brandy and Benedictine), Cointreau and Amaretto (which works especially well when the included nuts are almonds). There's also a single-fruit (apricot-only) variation I do, and I used peach schnapps for that one.

Just pick whatever strong booze you've got in your cupboard that you think will combine well with whatever fruit and nuts combination you're putting in your cake. If you like rum, go for rum. Don't be afraid to experiment.
posted by sardonyx at 10:27 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love a good fruitcake and my parents both hated it. I breakfasted on fruitcake and coffee for MONTHS after Christmas! Also wasn’t there a MeFi post about the Muslim run family bakery in India that cornered the local fruitcake market?
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:36 AM on December 21, 2018

"There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.”

Perhaps he was being hyperbolic,

god bless your struggling heart, national review, you're just a leap and a bound away from figuring out what a "joke" is. keep at it, you'll get there

(dear Sir, I have devoted the past two score years to counting the number of fruit Cakes with the help of a grant from the National Review, and you will see from the enclosed accounting with helpful Graph that the number is greater than One, although the precise total cannot be given in whole numbers and is expressed to the third decimal place due to the unsteady and partial rate of Consumption. you will see from the Abstract that there are, nonetheless, extant fruit Cakes Plural. please issue a correction in your next show, yours very truly, etc. etc.)
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:39 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

You want a recipe for Christmas Cake, like the one here . Note that the recipe calls for "overnight" preparation, but the ingredients steep in brandy for *at least* three days. The royal icing forms a hard carapace that keeps it gloriously fit to fight for ages.
posted by Svejk at 11:06 AM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I like Eudora Welty's fruitcake recipe. "To make a friend's fine recipe is to celebrate her once more."
posted by asperity at 11:19 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

In the summer of 2000 I worked on a small, scrappy landscaping crew ​that landed a contract to plant over a hundred evergreens around the perimeter of a renowned fruit cake factory in Nowhere, Georgia. Our boss promised that we would all get plenty of hours, a bonus at the job's completion, etc. in exchange for the back-breaking labor involved with digging a hundred or so holes in red Georgia clay and heaving leyland cypresses (with massive root balls wrapped in burlap) into each one. Long story short: Setback after setback, the job dragged on for weeks and weeks. And for weeks and weeks there was no rain. The ground just got harder and harder. You would think that leasing an industrial auger would have make the job easier - and in some ways it did - but we still had to operate the damn thing, which was sort of like arm wrestling a churning, spiraling iron bull. And then the cypress trees we planted all started to die of thirst- their lush emerald hue began to fade, one by one, around the perimeter of the massive rectangular building. Each day I'd arrive on the job to find another tree dead. So we dug up the dead ones, replanted, and kept on planting. In an attempt to keep the trees alive, our boss purchased these plastic, doughnut-shaped bags for us to fill with water and place around their trunks. It was a futile gesture, really- that drought went on and on for years. I have since moved on and away, but even now, around the holidays, fruitcakes from this very same company pop up in my local supermarket, wrapped in cellophane and looking radioactive. I think of that summer in 2000 down in Georgia. Georgia of pine trees and perdition. Georgia of paradise. I think of how, down the street from the fruitcake factory, there was this convenience store where me and the other guys on the work crew bought our Gatorade and Funyuns and lottery tickets and cigarettes. Me, Mikedog, Magic City Brian, & Cool Kevin With The Flip-Phone. If it was a Friday after work, we'd be drinking cheap beer and listening to Goodie Mob in the parking lot while the western sky grew rosy & spectacular with the coming night. And now it occurs to me that I never saw one employee enter or exit that goddamn godforsaken hermetic fruitcake factory that whole summer, although the parking lot was always full. Maybe it was all I dream, says I. Maybe that's all any of this is.
posted by Bob Regular at 11:50 AM on December 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

A friend gave me a fruitcake a few years ago that I took with a great deal of skepticism, but because I know her and that she's a fantastic baker I ate it... and boy was I glad I did because it was fantastic. I got the recipe from her and now make it every year and give it to my friends, who are always excited to receive it. I love fruitcake.

This is the recipe I use but I don't like nutmeg so I just add more mace and other spices and my version is made with gluten-free flour.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:29 PM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

nthing love for the Collins St fruitcakes.

I like mooncakes, too.
posted by clew at 1:10 PM on December 21, 2018

Oh, and there's an ?ancient Roman? version that's almost entirely nuts, with just enough raisins to be sweet, held together with a scant mortar of flour and honey and well-spiced with black pepper. *So* good sliced thin and toasted. Can't remember the name to find the recipe! Anyone?
posted by clew at 1:11 PM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

clew, you might be thinking of panforte or panpepato.
posted by gauche at 1:15 PM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

previously
posted by theora55 at 1:35 PM on December 21, 2018

TART DE BRYMLENT [1]. XX.VIII. VII.

Take Fyges & Raysouns. & waisshe hem in Wyne. and grinde hem smale
with apples & peres clene ypiked. take hem up and cast hem in a pot
wi wyne and sugur. take salwar Salmoun ysode. oer codlyng, oer
haddok, & bray hem smal. & do erto white powdours & hool spices. &
salt. and see it.

[I'm sure someone could do a better job with the transcription]
posted by aspersioncast at 1:48 PM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would suggest Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory as a good primer for fruitcake production.
posted by garisimo at 2:07 PM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is this like, a Culture War Christmas truce offer? I've been firmly in the "you just haven't met the right one" camp since my family won a Collins St. cake.
posted by Selena777 at 2:10 PM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

With its utter blandness, I can't imagine a more suitable food for the nerdiest white supremacist publication out there.

A preference for bland food as performative whiteness seems to be in the same category as a preference for ugly art/badly-made music as performative non-mainstreamness.
posted by acb at 2:52 PM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

My great-aunt's fruitcake recipe, which I now make, does have unnaturally colored candied fruit, but don't let that put you off.

8 oz. green candied cherries
16 oz. red candied cherries
8 oz. natural pineapple
4 oz. red pineapple
4 oz. green pineapple (increasingly difficult to find, so sub in more red)
1 lb. golden raisins
1 c. pecans
1/2 c. Grand Marnier

Mix fruit and nuts in large bowl. Pour Grand Marnier over fruit mixture and let macerate overnight.

1/2 lb. butter
1 1/4 c. sugar
4 eggs
3 1/4 c. flour, divided
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 c. lemon juice
1/8 c. orange juice
zest of 1 lemon

Line 6 mini loaf pans (or 3 full-size pans) with buttered/greased parchment.
Preheat oven to 300° F.
Mix 1/2 c. flour with fruit.
Cream butter until smooth, adding sugar gradually. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Combine remaining flour with baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. Combine lemon and orange juices.
Gradually mix flour into butter mixture, alternating with juice.
Fold in fruit mixture.
Pack batter into prepared pans and bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until tester comes out clean.
When cool, wrap tightly and let rest for at least 2 weeks before serving.
posted by Princess Leopoldine Grassalkovich nee Esterhazy at 4:11 PM on December 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Princess Leopoldine Grassalkovich nee Esterhazy's recipe is similar to my grandmother's; except, it leaves out my grandmother's additional step of repeatedly pouring on booze to soak in for the last three weeks.
posted by mightshould at 4:33 PM on December 21, 2018

conservatives have weird culture war obsessions with changes wrought by capitalism, but they cannot bear to name their enemy.
posted by gauche at 9:04 AM on December 2

Guilty!
posted by clavdivs at 6:49 PM on December 21, 2018

I have now said "pecan" enough times that it no longer sounds like a real word

Intentionally mispronouncing words is quite fun - let's all just agree to call them "peckins" and let the chips fall where they may.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:27 AM on December 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

When I lived in TX, I got it from the Collins St Bakery in Corsicana. It's made with Texas pecans (that's "pē-cahns", yankees), mmmmm!

Oh man... that’s the fruitcake that my grandma loved best, except she’d only let herself order one about once a decade, if even that often. But she kept all her sewing notions in the tin her 1979 cake came in.
posted by palomar at 2:56 PM on December 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

My wife and I have made old-school dried-not-candied fruitcakes as gifts for over a decade. The recipients are MAD for them — like, one makes a point of telling anyone who will listen that it’s a major highlight of his holiday season.

Ours is the Alton Brown / Good Eats version, but we omit nuts and add figs. It’s a dense, gingery, sweet-but-not-cloying loaf of holiday happiness, and more than one fruitcake naysayer has gone from thinking of them as a punchline to discretely asking if they could join our fruitcake list (again, all glory to Mr Brown; we merely follow the instructions).

I’m on mobile or I’d link it; memail me if you want the recipe & can’t find it, as I’m happy to share. The gist is a two-stage bake: On the first day, you get all your dried fruits with lemon and orange zest and soak them in rum for at least 24 hours. Erin and I can get this done in less than half an hour nowadays.

The actual bake isn’t really hard, either: put the rum-soaked fruit in a pot with sugar, butter, spices, and apple juice and simmer for a bit. Let it cool, then add your flour and baking soda & powder and eggs to make it a batter, and bake for the better part of an hour. (With 8 mini-loaf pans in our oven, the bake time is about 45 minutes; put a big roasting pan of water on the lower shelf to prevent cracking.)

Bring them out when done, and baste with brandy immediately. Doesn’t need to be fancy, but don’t use something you wouldn’t drink. Turn out of the pans when completely cool, and store in tupperware or similar overnight before you wrap in Saran and start delivering. If you double his recipe, yield is about 8 mini-loafs. We do this twice.

It’s a wonderful thing. It feels like holiday, and it makes your house SMELL like holiday. And then you have several things you made by hand to give your closest pals and family, and they will smile and feel warm because of it.

I grew up Christian, but have lost that somewhere along the way. The spirit of Christmas, though, remains for me in activities like these. Maybe you’ll enjoy it, too.
posted by uberchet at 7:16 AM on December 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm no longer traveling & on mobile, so: Alton Brown's Good Eats Free Range Fruitcake.
posted by uberchet at 6:33 AM on December 28, 2018