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Tell the truth Fruit Cake

Hawkeye10

Buttermilk Man
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What do you think of it, and what stories do you have to tell about it?

One of my grandma's was known around as quite the baker and she started sometime in the 50's to every year make a light one and a dark one. The light one is almost a poundcake with nuts and fruit, the dark one is sugary with with some brandy....but they really did not drink so it is not a lot of brandy. I always liked the light one and so did most of our immediate family so pretty quick my mom only did the light one....with double or triple the usually pineapple. For several years she baked a bunch inside of paper grocery bags that had been rubbed down with Crisco inside of giant loaf pans to Nam. In later years I came to appreciate the dark, but I added more alcohol when I made it. The Aunt who is currently not talking to me because I like Trump (She is an Old School very active liberal, her husband my Uncle ran a huge Legal Aid office for decades...I am so disappointed) made it the old way till two years ago when she decided to stop making any Fruit Cake, upon the guidance of a friend who tells her to purify her life of anything that does not bring her bliss....and apparently Fruit Cake does not. I like Gethsemani Farms and used to buy it sometimes even for gifts but since they stopped making that fantastic cheese **** em...I am done with em.
 
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I used to hate it, now I like them. The key is to nibble on them every now and then instead of cutting off a piece and eating it all in one sitting like a normal cake.
 
What do you think of it, and what stories do you have to tell about it?

One of my grandma's was known around as quite the baker and she started sometime in the 50's to every year make a light one and a dark one. The light one is almost a poundcake with nuts and fruit, the dark one is sugary with with some brandy....but they really did not drink so it is not a lot of brandy. I always liked the light one and so did most of our immediate family so pretty quick my mom made only did the light one....with double or triple the usually pineapple. For several years she baked a bunch inside of paper grocery bags that had been rubbed down with Crisco inside of giant loaf pans to Nam. In later years I came to appreciate the dark, but I added more alcohol when I made it. The Aunt who is currently not talking to me because I like Trump (She is an Old School very active liberal, her husband my Uncle ran a huge Legal Aid office for decades...I am so disappointed) made it the old way till two years ago when she decided to stop making any Fruit Cake, upon the guidance of a friend who tells her to purify her life of anything that does not bring her bliss....and apparently Fruit Cake does not. I like Gethsemani Farms and used to buy it sometimes even for gifts but since they stopped making that fantastic cheese **** em...I am done with em.

I love properly home-made fruitcake with brandy, all the candied nuts, fruits and citrons. I realize they are the butt of countless Holiday jokes for being terrible bricks, but I think they are like oysters: Some people love them, some hate them. Tastes vary.
 
I used to hate it, now I like them. The key is to nibble on them every now and then instead of cutting off a piece and eating it all in one sitting like a normal cake.

And coffee, dont forget the coffee!

I drink really strong really well made Starbucks dark.
 
I love properly home-made fruitcake with brandy, all the candied nuts, fruits and citrons. I realize they are the butt of countless Holiday jokes for being terrible bricks, but I think they are like oysters: Some people love them, some hate them. Tastes vary.

Some famous chef I once heard say "So many people say they dont like meatloaf, but most of them have never had any good meat loaf(Paraphrase, maybe)".

Same applies to Fruit Cake I think.
 
Some famous chef I once heard say "So many people say they dont like meatloaf, but most of them have never had any good meat loaf(Paraphrase, maybe)".

Same applies to Fruit Cake I think.

My mom made fabulous meatloaf. Loaded with onion and other good stuff. Then with ketchup baked on the top till it was a dark red. Delicious.
 
My mom made fabulous meatloaf. Loaded with onion and other good stuff. Then with ketchup baked on the top till it was a dark red. Delicious.

You get your participation like even though you did not talk about Fruit Cake.

I am in a giving mood.

IT'S CHRISTMAS!

:sword:
 
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I've never eaten fruit cake, and doubt I ever will. It just doesn't look like something I'd care about eating.
 
You get your participation like even though you did not talk about Fruit Cake.

I am in a giving mood.

IT'S CHRISTMAS!

:sword:

Fruitcake in my family is a nonstarter. I have had ONE ok fruitcake in my life. I and the rest of the clan avoid it. We do zuccuni bread and banana bread instead oh and carrot bread/cake. You eat that warm with lots of butter or slice it cold and then toast lightly the slices and melt the butter on the toasted slice. We also do that with all sorts of cakes actually. Good stuff. Toasted chocolate cake with some homemade vanilla bean ice cream with vanilla beans straight from the tree. Oh yea.
 
Fruitcake in my family is a nonstarter. I have had ONE ok fruitcake in my life. I and the rest of the clan avoid it. We do zuccuni bread and banana bread instead oh and carrot bread/cake. You eat that warm with lots of butter or slice it cold and then toast lightly the slices and melt the butter on the toasted slice. We also do that with all sorts of cakes actually. Good stuff. Toasted chocolate cake with some homemade vanilla bean ice cream with vanilla beans straight from the tree. Oh yea.

Thank! You!

:thumbs:
 
What do you think of it, and what stories do you have to tell about it?

One of my grandma's was known around as quite the baker and she started sometime in the 50's to every year make a light one and a dark one. The light one is almost a poundcake with nuts and fruit, the dark one is sugary with with some brandy....but they really did not drink so it is not a lot of brandy. I always liked the light one and so did most of our immediate family so pretty quick my mom only did the light one....with double or triple the usually pineapple. For several years she baked a bunch inside of paper grocery bags that had been rubbed down with Crisco inside of giant loaf pans to Nam. In later years I came to appreciate the dark, but I added more alcohol when I made it. The Aunt who is currently not talking to me because I like Trump (She is an Old School very active liberal, her husband my Uncle ran a huge Legal Aid office for decades...I am so disappointed) made it the old way till two years ago when she decided to stop making any Fruit Cake, upon the guidance of a friend who tells her to purify her life of anything that does not bring her bliss....and apparently Fruit Cake does not. I like Gethsemani Farms and used to buy it sometimes even for gifts but since they stopped making that fantastic cheese **** em...I am done with em.

We shopped for the ingredients today.
Husband loves fruitcake so he’s going to bake one.
Not an inexpensive cake to make.
Enjoyed reading your memories when receiving your cake while serving in Nam.
 
We shopped for the ingredients today.
Husband loves fruitcake so he’s going to bake one.
Not an inexpensive cake to make.
Enjoyed reading your memories when receiving your cake while serving in Nam.

There you go.....CHRISTMAS SPIRIT!

Thanks I am glad I saw you as I am about to head out to squire Sinjin The Wonder Pup around the hood.





Gotta Go....







:2wave:
 
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I am not a fan of fruitcake. To me there is just too much going on. If you want to put candied cherries in a little cookie or nuts currents, dates, raisins in others, that's great but there are just to many ingredients in a fruitcake!

I love nut rolls instead for their simplicity. You have a basic yeast dough that is slightly sweetened with eggs, milk and butter. The filling is ground walnuts to the consistency of sawdust. The walnuts are the star. And I will testify there is nothing better for breakfast than a slice of nut roll toasted slathered with butter and a good cup of coffee. Yum.
 
What do you think of it, and what stories do you have to tell about it?
  • I like fruitcake so long as it doesn't have "gritty" seeds (usually fig seeds, but any "gritty" seeds displease me) in it. It's not so much that I cannot forbear such seeds; it's that I strongly prefer they not be in the fruit cake.
  • I haven't any unusual stories pertaining to fruit cake.

    Momma and our maid/cook, Miss Greene, used to make booze-soaked (rum, rye or bourbon usually) fruit cakes every fall. They did a good job with it. They served it with hot bourbon or rum hard sauce, the taste of which I've loved since I was a tike.

    I recall plenty of Dad's business associates coming by for holiday dinners and/or cocktail parties and finding themselves served Momma's fruit cake and homemade ice cream with fresh fruit for dessert. Comments to the effect of "I don't usually like fruitcake, but this is quite good" were fairly common.

Something else I like and that I've since learned a fair number of folks don't is mincemeat pie. That too is a holiday dessert we often had with hard sauce and ice cream.

Of course, eggnog was the de rigueur drink to have with either the fruit cake or pie. Even us kids, once we were over 8, got to drink a small bit of "grown-up" eggnog (Momma always also had a separate batch w/out booze for us to drink if we wanted 'nog after our first small glass of "the real stuff."). I later learned that Momma and Dad knew that a bit of booze was quite effective for making us briefly entertaining and shortly thereafter calmed, ready for bed and out of the gown-ups' way at a decent hour.
 
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I love properly home-made fruitcake with brandy, all the candied nuts, fruits and citrons. I realize they are the butt of countless Holiday jokes for being terrible bricks, but I think they are like oysters: Some people love them, some hate them. Tastes vary.

Red:
  • Absolutely!
  • Is there any other kind of fruitcake? LOL
  • As for the "bricks," well, that's the result of someone not knowing how to make fruitcake. LOL
 
  • I like fruitcake so long as it doesn't have "gritty" seeds (usually fig seeds, but any "gritty" seeds displease me) in it. It's not so much that I cannot forbear such seeds; it's that I strongly prefer they not be in the fruit cake.
  • I haven't any unusual stories pertaining to fruit cake.

    Momma and our maid/cook, Miss Greene, used to make booze-soaked (rum, rye or bourbon usually) fruit cakes every fall. They did a good job with it. They served it with hot bourbon or rum hard sauce, the taste of which I've loved since I was a tike.

    I recall plenty of Dad's business associates coming by for holiday dinners and/or cocktail parties and finding themselves served Momma's fruit cake and homemade ice cream with fresh fruit for dessert. Comments to the effect of "I don't usually like fruitcake, but this is quite good" were fairly common.

Something else I like and that I've since learned a fair number of folks don't is mincemeat pie. That too is a holiday dessert we often had with hard sauce and ice cream.

Of course, eggnog was the de rigueur drink to have with either the fruit cake or pie. Even us kids, once we were over 8, got to drink a small bit of "grown-up" eggnog (Momma always also had a separate batch w/out booze for us to drink if we wanted 'nog after our first small glass of "the real stuff."). I later learned that Momma and Dad knew that a bit of booze was quite effective for making us briefly entertaining and shortly thereafter calmed, ready for bed and out of the gown-ups' way at a decent hour.

I did once mince meat pie from something like a 1886 cookbook I found as I was doing my haunting of the at that time fabulous Michigan State University Library....I was supposed to be working on my Electical Engineering classes....... I spent so much of my money on out of state tuition for my Michigan State University Electrical Engineering classes.....but something happened.

It was out of sight.

In that same book I found an even better recipe for Egg Nog Pie.

I made one for my future wife's mother at Thanksgiving 1985.

The mother turned out to be a bitch.

The wife is fine!

:2wave:
 
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No, no, and hell no.

Fruitcake is the sum of all that is evil condensed into a corporeal state....My grandmothers fruitcake had the density of depleted uranium, and the taste of misery and despair; it was so hard it was often referred to as "fossil cake".

You drop that sucker from orbit and the damage it would cause would rival Tunguska.
 
No, no, and hell no.

Fruitcake is the sum of all that is evil condensed into a corporeal state....My grandmothers fruitcake had the density of depleted uranium, and the taste of misery and despair; it was so hard it was often referred to as "fossil cake".

You drop that sucker from orbit and the damage it would cause would rival Tunguska.

Do you have any confidence that you have ever tried a good one?
 
There is fruit cake and there is fruit cakes. The worst are the English with candied fruit, graham flour and nuts. The best offer rum, brandies, liqueurs and other spirits. The best I've enjoyed began with a layer of sweet fresh figs, baked lemon ricotta, dried apricots soaked in sweet grappa, covered with half peaches candied in its own syrup, and creme fraise sweetened with anisette. No flour, maybe some pine nuts, thin sliced with cups of steaming cafe au lait, Belgian hot Chocolate with no sugar, or hot mulled cider. Followed by warm lemon vanilla banana pudding and milk with scotch, sugar comas. A long nap. Another nap.
 
There is fruit cake and there is fruit cakes. The worst are the English with candied fruit, graham flour and nuts. The best offer rum, brandies, liqueurs and other spirits. The best I've enjoyed began with a layer of sweet fresh figs, baked lemon ricotta, dried apricots soaked in sweet grappa, covered with half peaches candied in its own syrup, and creme fraise sweetened with anisette. No flour, maybe some pine nuts, thin sliced with cups of steaming cafe au lait, Belgian hot Chocolate with no sugar, or hot mulled cider. Followed by warm lemon vanilla banana pudding and milk with scotch, sugar comas. A long nap. Another nap.

If you want to know the truth The Fat Man is always the one to ask!

:2wave:
 
Do you have any confidence that you have ever tried a good one?

Honestly, I would rather set myself on fire and drag my nuggets through a mile of crushed glass. :neutral:

I feel the same way about head cheese and lutefisk.
 
Honestly, I would rather set myself on fire and drag my nuggets through a mile of crushed glass. :neutral:

I feel the same way about head cheese and lutefisk.

YIKES! and YAWZA!

Different Strokes for Different Folks....Do you remember way back when in the Good Old Days when that was how we operated?

Good for you, a man who knows what he does not like.....we will meet up some other place to be sure!
 
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I love properly home-made fruitcake with brandy, all the candied nuts, fruits and citrons. I realize they are the butt of countless Holiday jokes for being terrible bricks, but I think they are like oysters: Some people love them, some hate them. Tastes vary.
Yes Felis Leo tastes does vary. We all grow up with different tastes. I have received fruitcakes from people in the past and I know they were made with heart, a family recipe passed down.
I and my family just didn't care for them. I would never say so. Instead it sat around until one could break a tooth on it and it was thrown away. But I am sure some of my favorite family recipes of baked goods that I made with heart didn't appeal to some of those that I shared them with over the years and most likely they were thrown away too.
 
Yes Felis Leo tastes does vary. We all grow up with different tastes. I have received fruitcakes from people in the past and I know they were made with heart, a family recipe passed down.
I and my family just didn't care for them. I would never say so. Instead it sat around until one could break a tooth on it and it was thrown away. But I am sure some of my favorite family recipes of baked goods that I made with heart didn't appeal to some of those that I shared them with over the years and most likely they were thrown away too.

Soak Em in Alcohol.

You gave up too fast!
 
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