I Love Christmas Fruitcake!

As a child, while visions of sugar plums danced in theand banned the fruit cake! I suspect they were correct
heads of children around the world on Christmas eve, Ion that decision. A good fruitcake is so delicious it is
dreamed of candied orange peel, candied lemon peel,almost a sin to enjoy it as much as I do. Thankfully it's
candied citron, candied cherries, raisins, ginger, choppednot banned in Alabama.
walnuts, chopped pecans, grated lemon rind, brandy,As to the decadence of the fruitcake, a rumor that
vanilla cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, mixed into a batterhas lasted for a couple of centuries, reveal that Queen
made of baking powder, flour, sugar and eggs. IVictoria received a fruitcake for her birthday one year
remember watching mom mixing these ingredientsbut waited another year to eat it. She wanted to show
together to make the perfect fruit cake!that the elite could show restraint and good taste while
From the time when I was a mere child, andenjoying in moderation such a tasty treat. This restraint
discovered that Christmas was really all about eating, Ihas unfortunately followed her to this century for
was addicted to fruitcake. To me, nothing epitomizedmany folks decry the virtues of the noble fruitcake!
the meaning of Christmas like that of my mother'sNot everyone has been enamored of the fruitcake as
fruitcakes that she made from scratch. This was ofI have been. Over the years people have made jokes
course before I knew that Christmas was really aabout them that have not really been in good taste, but
celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ some 2000 plusthen good taste is not something that is in abundance
years ago. Until that time, the success of myin our society. Bad jokes about the fruitcake have
Christmas depended on whether my mother had feltbeen around for years. Everyone has heard the one
like baking the cake a month before.liners concerning this wonderful cake:
I often wondered why she would make a cake in'Fruitcakes make good door stops.'
November only to cut into it a month later in'Fruitcakes make good weights on a grandfather
December. As I was growing up I learned that sheclock.'
would soak a cloth in my wayward uncle's whiskey'Fruitcakes make good Christmas wreaths.'
that she'd would pilfer while he was asleep, soak a'Fruitcakes make good Curling stones.'
cloth with the brandy or whatever spirits he was'There is really only one fruitcake; it's just been passed
consuming at the time, and insert it in the center of thearound for hundreds of years'
fruitcake which was baked in a bunt pan. The whiskeyThere's no accounting for bad taste. These and other
would soak into the cake, giving it a tang that couldn'tjokes have made a mockery of the awesome
be made any other way.fruitcake.
Fruitcake addiction hasn't been limited to me. HistoryWhile commercial bakeries do indeed make excellent
tells us in the early 1800's, fruitcake, then called plumfruitcakes, I still wish I could taste one like my mother
cake, was outlawed throughout continental Europe. Itused to make when I was a kid. I am making this my
seems that the powers that be back then thought theone big mission in life... searching for the perfect
cake was so good it just had to be sinful. Sincefruitcake!
flagrant sinning was a no-no, Royalty put its foot down