Seasonal Poll

[Lee Schierer]

Every year you hear people making comments about fruitcake. People have all sorts of creative things they say can be done with a fruitcake. Inevitably someone asks if people actually eat fruitcake. So, let's find out...

[David Christopher]

Lee, I dont eat fruitcake, but it makes a good treat for the dogs

[Lee Schierer]

I suppose that would be regifting.....:D

[David Hostetler]

Most fruitcake is this god awful conglomeration of gooey gunk not worthy of human consumption, then there is the lighter variety that is basically a rum cake with overly chewy fruit on top... Leave the fruit off and the cake is actually quite good... But then again I like rum.

[Steve Sawyer]

Homemade fruitcake is very easy to make and quite good It's also fun to make several, and wrap some in a tea towel soaked in bourbon or rum.

[Roger Newby]

Any of you Vets out there remember the fruitcake in C-Rations?:eek: It was made in my hometown of Nebraska City. I didn't like it then (1950's) when it was fresh and sure didn't like it 15 years later. :(

[Von Bickley]

There are many different kinds of fruit cakes. I make fruit cakes every December from a recipe that my Mother used and they are very good IMO. I have had fruit cake that I don't like very much, but I like the recipe I use.

[Ken Garlock]

Now listen closely. The Best Fruit Cake made on this planet is made by the Collins Street Bakery in Corsicana Texas. It has customer all over the world, including English royal family. Others include people from Germany, Peru, Brazil,Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.

Each Christmas I order a medium size for each of our two adult children and two small ones for LOML and me.

I may be wrong, it maybe the best fruit cake in the galaxy.:eek:

[Jim Becker]

I only eat my mothers...and it just arrived. :)

[Myk Rian]

You should have put in the option of re-gifting the things. :)
EDIT: Thanks Lee. Didn't see the re-gift.
Still, I would rather starve. :)

[Chris Damm]

I either regift it or use it for a doorstop!

[Belinda Barfield]

My mother makes an outstanding fruitcake from an old family recipe. She also makes a wonderful "icebox fruitcake" that is made from graham cracker crums and marshmallow cream, nuts, and candied cherries. Yummy!

[Von Bickley]

My mother makes an outstanding fruitcake from an old family recipe. She also makes a wonderful "icebox fruitcake" that is made from graham cracker crums and marshmallow cream, nuts, and candied cherries. Yummy!

Belinda,
These people that don't like fruit cakes don't know how good our Southern Fruit Cakes are. They don't have all of our old time southern recipes.

[Lee Schierer]

Belinda,
These people that don't like fruit cakes don't know how good our Southern Fruit Cakes are. They don't have all of our old time southern recipes.

I will accept a sample from each of you to judge which one has the best recipe!!!! The sample should be at least a pound.:D

[Jim Becker]

The sample should be at least a pound.


That's like...one bite...on a good one! LOL :D

[John Thompson]

Good fruit-cake is good. Good fruit-cake will last forever. A family that buried 100 Claxton, Georgia fruit-cakes in 2000 can dig one up each year for Xmas for an entire Century. Make great gifts also as yes.... they can be re-wrapped and given to someone else the next year. I have seen a few that have been re-gifted that have made the family circle as a joke for around 30 years.

Putting two and two together.. nobody on my mother's side of the family passed away before 90 years old regardless of how much they smoked or drank. That side all loves fruit-cake so... whatever perservatives are in Claxton Fruit-Cake may increase life span from eating it? ha.. ha... ;)

[Jim Koepke]

Good fruit-cake is good. Good fruit-cake will last forever. A family that buried 100 Claxton, Georgia fruit-cakes in 2000 can dig one up each year for Xmas for an entire Century. Make great gifts also as yes.... they can be re-wrapped and given to someone else the next year. I have seen a few that have been re-gifted that have made the family circle as a joke for around 30 years.

Putting two and two together.. nobody on my mother's side of the family passed away before 90 years old regardless of how much they smoked or drank. That side all loves fruit-cake so... whatever perservatives are in Claxton Fruit-Cake may increase life span from eating it? ha.. ha... ;)

Well, hope this works on my wife. I just went out and ate the last piece from the fruit cake she let me have and told her I need more. I remember the year I hid a few of her extras so I could have them at the beginning of the season the next year. They were good. She doesn't like me to have them right after they are finished and the rum is still soaking in. I tell her someone has to make sure the rum is getting to the center.

BTW, my dad loved fruit cake and almost made it to 92.

jim

[Jim Koepke]

Mentioned this on another forum and one reply says these guys make a good fruit cake. For 36 Samolians it better be! hermitagebigsur.com/fruitcake.asp

Now what I don't get, how can you be a hermitage and have a gift shop?

I consider myself somewhat a hermit and I ain't gonna open no gift shop. I am even a little bit leery of having a yard sale.

jim

[Peter Stahl]

I like a good quality fruit cake. The cheaper ones are just like cheap candy or anything else.

[Belinda Barfield]

Belinda,
These people that don't like fruit cakes don't know how good our Southern Fruit Cakes are. They don't have all of our old time southern recipes.

What type of fruit do you use, Von? My mom makes one cake that is mostly candied fruit and nuts, and another that is really "old timey" with apples, figs, pear preserves - basically whatever fruit was put up in the summer. ('Puttin' up fruit' is one of those southern phrases, for those of you who ain't from around here.)

I was once considered the Queen of Fruitcake Cookies . . . now I'm just the Queen of Fruitcakes (not the edible type). :D


I will accept a sample from each of you to judge which one has the best recipe!!!! The sample should be at least a pound.:D

The one pound sample will be one slice of my mother's cake Lee. Actually, she makes fruitcakes before Thanksgiving and we usually don't have any left for Christmas. If we have one for Christmas I'll send you a sample!

[Brian Elfert]

My mother makes maybe a dozen fruitcakes before Thanksgiving. She wraps them in plastic wrap and ages them in the fridge for 4 to 6 weeks.

They are moist and get eaten by folks who like fruitcake. Personally, I can't stand fruitcake.

[Bill Cunningham]

My mother made them for years, as did her mother, and we still use the same baking tins from the 1800's. My mother passed away in 2002, my wife now makes the fruitcake from my mothers recipe. Once made, it's kept in in a cool place for a month or more (the longer the better) and a shot of brandy is poured over it about once every two weeks. We unwrap it this week, and enjoy..

[Von Bickley]

What type of fruit do you use, Von? My mom makes one cake that is mostly candied fruit and nuts, and another that is really "old timey" with apples, figs, pear preserves - basically whatever fruit was put up in the summer. ('Puttin' up fruit' is one of those southern phrases, for those of you who ain't from around here.)



Grand-Ma’s Fruit Cake

1 lb. – Broken Pecans
½ lb. – Chopped Pineapple
½ lb. – Chopped Cherries
½ lb. – Mixed Fruit
1 lb. – White Raisins
4 cups – Sifted Flour
½ lb. – Butter
2 ¼ Cups of Sugar
1 oz. – Brandy Flavoring or Brandy
6 eggs
1 teaspoon Nutmeg
1+½ - teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Salt

Use 2 greased loaf pans (9X5X3).

Flour the pecans, fruit and raisins. Cream the butter & sugar, add flavoring, nutmeg, salt & cinnamon. Then add eggs and work this mixture into the floured fruit.
Mix by hand if necessary.

Fill pans 2/3 full and bake at 275 degrees.
2 Loaf pans – 1.75 - 2 hours or until done. Do not overcook.

I can never find brandy flavoring so I use brandy.
I also baste the fruit cake with blackberry wine while it is still warm.

For our northern friends, we use pecans and not pecons.......

[Belinda Barfield]

Thanks for posting your recipe Von. I'll take a copy to my mother on Thursday.

[Lee Schierer]

Well the votes are in. 44.5% seem to like fruit cake to one degree or another and 50.3% don't care for it and 5.1% need to get off the fence and try some.


I'm still watching for all the samples that were promised, when deliveries start again on Monday since they didn't make it before Santa came.

Merry Christmas one and all.

[keith ouellette]

I just heard it referred to as the "Rodney Dangerfield of deserts" on tv just the other day. I also found out on the same show that Swiss colony sells about 350,000 of them per year. They make them from january to june and let them age at least 6 months before they are sold. Each year they add 500% to they're Christmas workforce to keep up with the fruit cake demand.

It would seem fruit cake is good for the economy.

Take that fruit cake haters.

[Michael Wetzel]

Fruit cakes were used before rubber hockey pucks were invented :D

[Michael Gibbons]

What keeps fruitcake from rotting?

[James Rambo]

I love fruitcake. The rest of my family (5 brothers and 3 sisters) all think I'm crazy. I travel through georgia 5 or 6 times a year and stop at the magnolia plantation on I-75 and get 1 or 2 - 5 lbs. boxes of I think it is Claxtons.