Bring Back the Fruit Cake
The merry season is fast approaching. It’s merry because of the happy memories that everyone has about it. And those memories are kept alive by tradition – the things that everyone does over and over again, every time Christmas comes around.
There have since been new Christmas practices. Some beautiful Christmas customs have also been lost. Nowadays, even in the rural areas carolers going house to house have become a rare sight; young people are content in exchanging electronic Christmas cards on their handheld devices. Another thing about Christmas that has slid to obscurity is the fruit cake. What was once a standard Christmas gift among adults has now been replaced by gift certificates. But nothing quite compares with a good fruit cake as Christmas gift – it can be enjoyed throughout the whole year and beyond! The best time to eat a good fruitcake is after it has had time to properly age and has absorbed the brandy or liquor that’s been sprinkled on it. Fruitcakes are extremely dense, packed chock-full of nuts, dried and candied fruit and just a little batter. Its taste is observed to improve with age – up to a certain point, of course. In old England, where it originated, fruit cake used to be the ideal wedding cake. In those days, the brides would even keep their wedding cake for a full year and eat some of it on their first wedding anniversary. The thick sugar icing would help to preserve the cake within. While it’s true that enjoying fruit cake is an acquired taste, it’s a taste that’s not really hard to acquire.
A balance between sweet and bitterish fruit (dates and candied citrus peel for example) gives the fruit cake its characteristic taste. It is moist from the fruit such as sultanas and brandy, dark and spicy but not burnt, substantial but terrific when consumed in small portions. It can be a real holiday treat served with an equally intense dessert wine.
Great fruitcakes are seriously dense with fruit and nuts which may include currants, raisins, sultanas, candied peels, dates, figs, cherries, walnuts and almonds. Some bake the cake with brandy in the batter but others like to drizzle the brandy onto the cake and repeat this several times until they think the cake is pleasantly saturated.
The Filipino variation to the fruit cake is a cake that is distinctly sweet. The cake is made of butter, sugar, salt, eggs, flour and baking powder mixed with candied fruits and chopped nuts soaked in brandy or rum then baked until golden brown. It’s often the women in the Filipino home that make it.