E-Mail 'Fruit Cake? Are You Crazy?, by NMSourdough' To A Friend

29 Comments

1. As a fruitcake lover, I agree completely with the article. In fact, the last slice of our home made fruitcake made in Oct. is in the cupboard waiting to be eaten. go slow. You can really pack on the pounds with these.

2. What’s a good way to store friutcake long-term? Also, I loved the ‘recipe’ at the end!! LOL

   1. shrunk wrapped or vacuum packed in a metal tin, no air/no light/ cool storage

   2. If you make them according to the recipes that are in cookbooks and online, they will last for quite a while, meaning at least several years. Especially if you put in a generous portion of adult beverage as most recipes call for. The alcohol helps to keep them fresh and from going stale or starting to rot.

   3. While in the Airforce in 1962 I ate fruit cake that was packed in 1950. Made me a fruit cake lover. I have some stored in a mylar bag with oxygen absorbers.

3. Thank you for this enlightening article, and the humor was a nice touch!

4. Collin Street Bakery fruitcake is delicious, i used to eat one every July, saved from Christmas.

   Here is a soldiers fruitcake story from WW2, a friend of my father’s ( they were both ww2 combat Vets, european theatre, and both raised in the depression)

   One Christmas during the war in Germany my dads friend Frank received a package in a wood box from a United Methodist Church in his hometown. He pried it open and discvered it was a commercially made and packaged fruitcake. He immediately hid it in a stone wall in the woods near their headquarters ( for some reason they were off the front lines for 2 weeks for rest and new clothes, lucky being Christmas). On Christmas Eve he gathered his 3 best friends and told them to meet him at the end of the stone wall at midnight, bring hot coffee, and be sure they were followed by no one and tell no one. When they asked why he said “just be there at midnight”
   When they showed up, he led them into the woods, removed the hidden package and opened it up. They were dumbstruck, they couldnt speak for a full minute, just looking at a real cake from “home”. he told them to pour the coffee and one of them, his voice choking up said to him” why in the world would you SHARE that with any one and not just eat it all yourself?”
   Without a word, Frank pulled out his bayonet, cut the cake in 4 large pieces and said “Merry Christmas”
   Frank said it was excellent, and it was a Christmas memory he would never forget.

   1. Excellent story. Thanks for sharing!

5. Okay, I know I’m weird but I’ve always liked fruitcake.

6. Collin Street Bakery does make the best fruitcakes I’ve ever had. My wife and I buy one or two every year. I even ate one once!

7. So it is a kinda old world pemmican, right?

   1. Yes, but better due to all the goodies and the adult beverage used in making it. Never heard of brandy, whiskey or rum laced pemmican – LOL!

8. Claxton Fruit Cake is the best! You can get a three pack at Sam’s in the season! Forget half of one in your frig until June and you can get a buzz eating it. Built in self defense of someone tries taking it from you. Just wack ’em.

   1. RV – Careful!
      You don’t want to get arrested for assault with an edible weapon!
      But there is an easy way to hide the evidence…

9. A friend was stuck in a snow drift for almost a week while driving to customers. A customer of his had just given him a rum soaked fruit cake as a gift. He commented that at the end of the week he never wanted to eat another piece of fruit cake again. After some thought, he also made sure he had a fruit cake in his emergency stash when he was on the road in the winter.

10. This article fired up some old memories. We grew up poor but didn’t quite know it as a blessing. Grandma worked cleaning homes of wealthy people one of whom would (perhaps regift) give her a fruitcake every Christmas season. It was a treat and we didn’t realize such things were considered in the light that they are until much later.

    Years later as an Infantryman I secretly enjoyed my fruitcake MRE even if it did have that MRE taste added in. I recall that none of my soldiers ever complained about them although toward the end of my career they seemed to have disappeared from the menu. It was reliable. That main entree of chicken and rice could freeze in your pack forcing you to eat it on the move like a popcicle but the fruitcake was always edible and fortifying at anytime of the day.

11. I have been experimenting too with making loaf cakes with dried fruit to use up all the dried fruit. I didn’t think of it as a fruit cake – but that’s what it turned out to be. Very tasty and nutritious!

12. I make fresh fruitcake every two years or so and in significant quantities. This year’s result was 15 small loaf pans worth. I wrap them in cheesecloth and bathe them with brandy putting them in quart freezer bags to keep all the alcoholic goodness inside. The bagged cakes are stored in tins (popcorn type)and consigned to my root cellar. It took two bottles of brandy this year and I have to rotate the containers occasionally to keep the liquid from pooling. I have eaten my product when it was 7 years old and couldn’t tell the difference between it and a 3 year old batch. If you wait until after Christmas, most big grocers mark down the candied fruit radically – I picked up 12 lbs this year for $15. Can’t get enough of this stuff but it sure bumps up one’s caloric intake.

13. Our deep pantry includes a dozen 5-pound fruitcakes from Beatricebakery.com bakery. Some have been on the shelf as long as ten, yes, I said TEN years. We periodically open the oldest one, pour a half cup of brandy over it, put the lid back on and about a week later… Um! My oh my is that good!

    You might have seen the Beatrice Bakery “Grandma’s Fruit and Nut Ring” at Cebela’s.

14. I mike line with Brandy. Lots a Brandy.

15. I still remember the story of one family ‘regifting’ the same fruitcake for over a decade.

16. What an enjoyable article! I was never a fan until I tasted Collin Street’s. The one with extra nuts-yummy! My cousin is insane about the stuff, and probably goes through one a week with her morning coffee. It is good to know that there is something home cooks can do to further fortify their pantries!

17. I suppose I would try it…. but man they are not very good tasting. At least the ones I have had offered to me.

    1. Try some of the ones mentioned above, or if your wife or any other female friend has their grandmothers cookbooks, try some of the old recipes as they tend to always be good. Not that the more current recipes aren’t good too but their just seems to be something special about old family recipes!

18. Excellent and useful article. I did not know fruitcake lasted so long. My memory took me to pemmican as long term storage food. I will definitely be putting some aside into storage. Also enjoyed the comments.

19. I ate fruitcake once. I had my first migraine from it. That was all it took for me to never eat fruitcake again.

20. I always liked fruitcake.The sugar and calories!
    So heavy, It could be a weapon!

21. The History Channel did a series of episodes a few years ago titled “LIFE AFTER PEOPLE”. One episode featured fruitcake and scientists determined that a fruitcake could possibly last more than 1,000 years. They simply don’t know.

22. burp. I ran out of whiskey before I could finish the recipe. Can’t drive to the store for more and too far to crawl. What can I use as an alternative to burp whiskey. Oh noo where’s the bucket. Please! Stop mentioning food!

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