I luuurrrrve fruitcake. I know, I know ... some would call me a fruitcake on this basis alone.

Fruitcakes should sit in the back of a dark cupboard and get swabbed regularly with booze while they age. I've never had one mold -- enough booze makes for a reasonably antiseptic environment. But, if one did, I'd treat it like a country ham. That is, I'd scrap off the mold and gobble it up anyway.

Spritz away! It not only improves the flavor - alcohol is a preservative!

Alexa

Try it this year--it's really good without the plastic fruit.

My grandma always soaked her fruitcake in brandy and wrapped it in cloth of some sort (cheesecloth, maybe?)

All I know is that her fruitcake is the only one I have ever really liked.

I do have her recipe, but haven't made it in ages.

Linda

I agree with what's been said....and you will be surprised at how good a fruit cake is without those awful neon colored bits of "stuff"...I still put in some candied peel just for the tang but the rest is dried pineapple, cherries, cranberries blueberries and currents, and 2 kinds of raisins. Sometimes I sub some cut up dates for some of the dark raisins.
And nuts....lots of nuts!

The latest issue of YANKEE magazine has a good recipe for fruit cake without the candied things.

I like fruitcake. I've never had one soaked in booze, though. I came from a family of teetotalers (Christian Scientists don't drink). My grandmother made lots until she couldn't anymore. No weird neon bits. What is that stuff? She candied all her own fruit. The only thing I didn't like were the raisins. I like raisins, but not in fruitcakes. Dates and nuts, now we're talking.

I used to make my own fruitcakes and yes they were wrapped in brandied cheesecloth which from time to time were unwrapped and the cloths resoaked, just as my mother and grandmother did. They were kept in round lidded crockery pots in a cool dark place and boy they were SO good when it came time to take them out and put on the layer of marzipan and royal icing! :-)

SharonCb

Marzipan and royal icing???? I've never heard of that one. Maybe if I drowned it in enough of that I'll like it. LOL

Is that a Canadian tradition, Sharon?

Tammy

It's a British tradition. We do it in Australia too. In Oz, a traditional wedding cake is an aged fruit cake wrapped on the top and sides first with a thick (1/2") layer of marzipan, then a thick layer of what we call plastic icing and I think you call it fondant. Christmas cakes are similar but often have royal icing instead of plastic icing.
I make stained glass window fruit cakes for Christmas, which are whole pieces or large chunks of different kinds of glace (candied) fruit- red and green cherries, pineapple, peaches, apricots, pears and figs, and dried fruit- prunes and white raisins, whole nuts- pecans, almonds and Brazils, stuck together with very little cake mix.

The only reason I know this is because my neighbor is a British citizen...

The traditional British wedding fruitcake is because it lasts a long time & the top layer is kept to be eaten at the christening of the couple's first child. The groom's cake is different but I don't remember Mavis telling me what's the tradition for the groom's cake?

/tricia

colleen can you share that recipe - I am getting all nostalgic at the thought of making one. That is exactly how my late MIL (from England) made them.