Are you ready for fruitcake season?
With all the Christmas frenzy going on, I always find it amusing that fruitcake is such a low-key topic. Everyone hates fruitcake, and yet you can still buy them, although they are rarely advertised, somewhat hard to find, and have so far proven resistant to the enormous Christmas marketing machine.
You can buy branded everything at Christmas, but I have yet to find a branded fruitcake. Starburst may be branching out into candy canes, but not fruitcake. There may be white chocolate peppermint M&Ms, but there is no M&M fruitcake. (Too bad!)
How did we end up with something so iconic of the holiday season, and yet so loathed? Even candy corn has its fans, its marketing campaign, its branded tie-in versions. But not the lowly fruitcake.
The best you will get people to do is begrudgingly admit that "I don't hate it." I will freely admit that "I kinda like it," a lukewarm statement at best, but one which is usually met with shocked surprise. It's like saying you enjoy eating offal, or raw hamburger. People seem to believe that if it's true, it's a fact you should keep to yourself.
There are gourmet fruitcakes, of course. But although I am sure they are quite delicious, they cost a small fortune. For something which is so unloved, fruitcake's ingredients are expensive. And the sheer weight of a brick of fruitcake means that shipping costs can be prohibitive.
(I have heard from many sources that this fruitcake made at a Trappist monastery is the world's best. At $30 apiece plus shipping, I should hope so.)
Should you prefer to try making your own fruitcake from scratch, read over this recipe and reconsider your plan. Making fruitcake at home involves candying fruit, baking the cake, then spending the next two weeks spritzing it with brandy every few days while it cures.
Image courtesy Flickr/SeeMidTN.com