[Sca-cooks] One of the original fruitcakes has beenadmitted to ; -)

[Olwen the Odd]

>>I'm curious as to why, and at what point, people stopped liking fruitcake, 
>>as a rule. I'd hate to think it was the availability of cheap sugar 
>>sources that spelled the beginning of the end for dried fruit in baking. 
>>I'd also hate to think it was a public distaste for things like 
>>funky-colored glace cherries and mysterious citron peel, because those 
>>things belong no more in a proper fruitcake (at least not in bulk) than 
>>holes belong in a hamburger made outside of White Castle, and people 
>>persist in rampant hamburger-eating in spite of White Castle's existence. 
>>Why is fruitcake examined under the microscope of its worst possible 
>>incarnation, with that incarnation assumed to be the norm?
>
>I dislike fruitcake for the very reason you mention. I hate the candied
>fruits. In my mind, cake should be smooth and maybe accentuated with
>the crunch of nuts. But those nasty, gummy fruit things and raisins just
>ruin a perfectly good pastry. Fruitcake also usually has far too much
>rum in it for my taste. A hint of rum is nice but many are so soaked in
>the stuff it will serve better as a long term light source than food.
>
>Make it a nice dense nut bread, maybe with some soft fruit in it, and
>I'll eat it. But the commercial horrors that are inflicted on everyone
>need to be just as villified as they are.
>I guess we need to update an old saying too:
>Never eat anything that weighs more than your head.
>
>>Adamantius
>
>Gunthar
>
>(And White Castle is icky too.)

My mom makes a great "fruitcake" the way you like it, beginning with a nut 
bread recipe and adding pecans from her yard, and some of the typical citron 
and golden raisins along with some dried date bits and sometimes some dried 
cranberries or cherries.  When she sends one I jump on the phone and let 
some of my closer friends know and we pick a time to sit back with some nice 
wine and her fruitcake.
The dragon we made a while back was 3 pounds of creamcheese covered in 
citron and dried orange peel and actually the taste combination was rather 
good.  A few people vied for the white 'chocolate' wings.
Olwen

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