Fruitcake Tasting 2014

The latest homemade fruitcake tasting took placeon the 28th, and many delicious cakes were enjoyed!! This evening was a homemade only event--no commercial bakeries were included.

So here are the cakes we sampled :

(far left platter) Alton Brown's Free Range Fruitcake
(top platter) Joy of Cooking's Dark Fruitcake *
(On lower right platter, clockwise from 9 o'clock)
Alton Brown's Free Range Fruitcake (we had two)
Gourmet's The Best Fruitcake Ever
Stollen (just a tiny corner)
Fiona Cairns' Rich Tamarind Fruitcake (William & Kate's wedding cake)

Notice that quite a few of these are duplicates from last year's tasting. I guess they were good ones! They were all winners in this bunch.

Two of the guests made Alton Brown's Free Range Fruitcake, so we did a head-to-head tasting of it--and found them both to be yummy. There were slight variations between the two: one baker had soaked the cake in brandy, while the other had lightly spritzed same, and we found that the latter had a bit lighter taste because of it. So for anyone making their own, take note--adding alcohol gives the cake a heavier character. If you don't like candied fruit, this is a good recipe for you--all dried fruits. It almost looks like a quick bread, and we agreed that a generous dollop of cream cheese and this would be a delicious breakfast bread. Perhaps for Christmas morning?

Both the Best Fruitcake Ever and Fiona Cairns' fruitcakes are stellar--full of a variety of fresh and interesting flavors, rich and delicious, and the almond extract-flavored glaze adds an extra little pop.

Now, for that asterisk above on the Dark Fruitcake: I learned while searching for the Joy of Cooking Dark Fruitcake recipe on the internet, that the recipe in my edition of the Joy of Cooking was misprinted. It was actually missing about 6 eggs! There was also too much brandy in the recipe (but can there ever be too much brandy in a recipe, I ask you). We all did remark on my cake being sunken in the middle. I attributed that to (and still attribute it to) the fact that I mistakenly baked it in 2 stacked loaf pans instead of 1, so it was more insulated than it should have been.

Regardless, it was a good fruitcake. Everyone liked it for it's markedly dark flavor, attributable to the molasses and brown sugar in the recipe. I actually found it to be a bit too dark for my taste, edging into burnt tasting (to me). Could also be the large amount of raisins in the recipe.

Some Lessons Learned from previous fruitcake tastings:

1. Eat lightly. Our hostess ordered 2 big pizzas (from Roots--delicious!) for six people, which on an ordinary night could have easily been decimated, but people limited themselves to only a few slices, knowing that the tasting lay ahead. 
2. Pace yourself. We enjoyed conversation for a while after dinner, ate the first round of fruitcakes, talked a bit more, than went back in for round two. This approach allowed us to clear our palates and heads so we could fully enjoy all the cakes. 
3. Small slices! Notice the sizes of the slices we had cut above. The Free Range Fruitcake slices at top left were further cut into thirds for tasting. This is heavy stuff, and can only be fully appreciated and enjoyed when doled out in small pieces. Anything bigger and you're groaning in pain by the end of them all and might dream of fruitcake slices chasing you--which is what happened at previous tastings. 

I'll post the stollen recipe soon!

Fruitcake recipes from the fruitcake tasting, part 2

I was hoping to maybe have a couple more recipes from the fruitcake tasting but realized I think I'm really only missing one or two, so below are links to the others.

In my previous post I linked to the two more traditional fruitcakes. If you like a more traditional, dark, candied-fruit-and-booze-filled fruitcake, these would be the ones to make.

The Best Fruitcake Ever recipe from Yankee magazine was the cake in the heart pan. That's their description, not necessarily mine, but this would be a good recipe to start getting people into fruitcake, or maybe to serve on Christmas morning with coffee. It had a quick bread type taste.

The panforte recipe that I made, I grabbed from the Savour Fare blog. The only thing I did differently was that I used King Arthur Flour's candied mixed peel instead of the orange peel, melon and lemon zest. It was delicious as is, but I think it might be even more delicious with the original ingredients. I'd make this again--but I would COMPLETELY pay for pre-blanched and skinned almonds and hazelnuts, just to cut down on time. If I did that I could make this in about an hour, where since I had actually cracked open, skinned, and toasted the nuts, it took me about four (or it felt like it).

There are a couple of conclusions that I can draw from tasting all these homemade fruitcakes:

1. Homemade almost always beats commercially-made, simply because anything you make (as long as you know how to bake and don't mess anything up) will taste fresh and wholesome.
2. Homemade tastes only as good as the ingredients you use, and those ingredients should be fresh and of good quality. 

I didn't think I'd have enough candied fruit for the panforte, so drove over to the local grocery store to see if they had any more. I was pointed to a tiny, forlorn corner of the produce department, to 2-3 very, very sad plastic containers of candied fruit. They were violently colored and just didn't look good at all. I decided that I'd rather have less fruit in my cake than use that fruit, and I think it was a wise choice.

If you want to make your own fruitcake, plan for it. Collect what you need, and invest in good candied or dried fruit, fresh nuts, etc. My friend followed the direction at the bottom of the Best Christmas Cake recipe and purchased her fruit from Market Hall Foods in Oakland, and it certainly seemed to make a difference in her cakes. The most phenomenal cakes I've tasted have house-made candied fruit in them, so if you're feel obsessive you might want to start there.

The Fruitcake Tasting!

Look at these lovely people! These were some of the people baking (and eating) the fruitcakes from Friday's fruitcake tasting. Every single cake was delicious, and the types of cakes really ran the gamut. I'll post links to the recipes once I have them, but I can give you a run-down of the types of cakes we had. The one theme? They were all delicious--seems like most home-made cakes are!

The two loaves on the iron stand in back were both more traditional loaves--full of candied and dried fruit that had been macerated in alcohol, along with rich cake that was dark from brown sugar or molasses. The cake to the far left was very similar (or might even be) a type of cake called Bishop's bread. It was delicious, but we all questioned if it really qualified as a "fruitcake."  It did indeed contain fruit: cherries and figs, I believe, as well as nuts (pecans, I think). But the addition of CHOCOLATE CHIPS made it deliciously sweet and decadent. It was hands down the winner in the "which is the easiest cake to eat and enjoy" category. 

The other two (the other loaf and the cute cake in the heart pan) both contained fruit, mostly dried, and both tasted more like a quick bread. The one that was loaf-shaped was flavored with cinnamon and had a similar spice profile to a banana bread. They were both quite yummy tasting; however, the heart-shaped one was a bit dry, which we determined may have been because it was baked in that pan, which may have caused there to be a bit more evaporation. It was still delicious; perhaps it could have used a bit of a dousing of rum or whiskey (always good in my book). 

Finally, that very powdery white blob in the lower center was the panforte I made. The panforte is really more like a candy than a cake: it contains similar ingredients to a fruitcake, just in different proportions: sugar, honey, flour, candied fruit, hazelnuts, and almonds. The tasters likened it to a Payday bar, but with fruit - very gooey and a crowd pleaser--I think everyone enjoyed it. 

So that's the condensed version of the fruitcake tasting. I realize this is all very frustrating if you don't have the recipes, so I've posted a couple of the links below, and will post more as I get them. These two recipes are for the loaves on the iron rack:

Fiona Cairns Rich Tamarind Cake

The Best Christmas Cake

King Arthur Fruitcake: the prep

Hello all, big apologies for being so late on coming back to the blog! Life sometimes has a way of intruding on cyberspace.

The very last fruitcake I sampled at the end of last year was one of my own making, but not completely: I bought the King Arthur fruitcake mix at the end of the season and decided to make my own. This post will detail how it went.

I bought the kit for $21, wow, a bargain, because it was after Christmas. I don't remember what the original price was and they don't have the kit listed on the website right now. I believe it included all three items shown in the photo below (obviously not the super-cute vintage bowl; that's mine):

The kit consisted of the fruitcake mix (for the cake itself). I took a photo of the ingredients but since I am the worst photo taker EVER, it didn't turn out well. The ingredents are flour, sugar, baking powder, molasses, and "natural flavors."

Next is the dried fruit blend, consisting of the ingredients listing below:

Finally, candied cherries, which were of pretty good quality. Here are the ingredients for them:

The recipe called for halving the cherries, then soaking them and the fruit in water or your liquor of choice. Sounds like a good plan!

Since I always seem to like the taste of cognac/brandy in my fruitcakes, I chose to soak in that, as well as a bit of this:

How can that be bad? And indeed it wasn't. So everybody, in the pool! Here's before:

And here's how they looked after their soak:

The smell, of course, was delicious. The rest of the recipe was quite easy: mix the mix with butter, then fruit, I believe there were some eggs in there, well, let's look at the recipe ingredients list:

A bit of light corn syrup in there. I'm not too happy with that but I'm sure it adds texture and probably moisture to the mix. Here are my fruitcakes, before going in the oven:

And here they are after:

The recipe suggested the following:

Since I had 2 cakes, I figured I'd try to soak with a couple different liquors. And because I like my cakes pretty boozy, I decided that in addition to brushing them with liquor, I'd also soak them in cheesecloth soaked in liquor. Can't hurt, might help with the moistness, yes?

Here's what  I chose for each:

Yup, that's top-shelf Blanton's Bourbon on the right. I received that as a bridal shower gift.Come to think of it, the same girlfriend gave me both of these bottles of booze. What does that say about her impressions of me, that she gives me so much booze? That I'm top-shelf, maybe? But of course I'm her friend from COLLEGE, so conclude what you will from that and the gifts. In any case, what a great friend. So here we go! Cheesecloth in the pot:

(These photos are partly here to show some of the super-cute vintage dishware I've picked up from assorted resale shops. This is a good one, I always make cornbread in it).
In goes the booze:

And the cake is enshrouded:

For one nanosecond in my life, the idea of making my own cheese appealed. To that end, I purchased a few items from New England Cheesemaking Supply. The cheese never happened, but the Butter Muslin (read: cheesecloth) I bought from them is an excellent product. It's as sheer as a cheesecloth but the fiber is smoother and stronger. I don't think I can go back to standard grocery-store cheesecloth after using it:

Anyway, the other cake got its Bourbon wrap, then both of them went into plastic bags for an extended rest in my fridge:

A few weeks later I pulled them out and gave them a try. Why don't I save the photos and details of that in another post?

I'm not sure what the fruitcake season ahead of me is looking like. The siren call of Fiona Cairns' Rich Tamarind fruitcake has been haunting me: the taste was that good. Perhaps I'll veer into making my own? If anyone wants me to review specific fruitcakes, please comment here or on my Facebook page.

Recipe review: Fiona Cairns Rich Tamarind Fruitcake

As I mentioned in my previous post on the fruitcake tasting, my friend Laura's contribution to the event was a homemade fruitcake using the Fiona Cairns' recipe. You can see the beautiful results below; my friend Laura is an excellent baker and, evidently, food stylist, as she made the cake look gorgeous.

This recipe is definitely for a dark fruitcake, similar to what I call Monastery fruitcakes on my ratings page. Reviewing the recipe, you'll see that it contains molasses and brown sugar, and, in a surprising twist, tamarind concentrate. I have some of this in my house, but have never used it for baking; rather, I use it for cooking Indian food:

Tamarind paste brings a sour, fruity note to food. I know that may not sound terribly pleasant, but it's an essential component of Indian cooking, used to offset heat or sweetness, really just as a counterpoint to the other flavors going on. And I feel it's an essential component to the deliciousness of this cake. Because it was, indeed, delicious.

Here's a slice of the cake:

It contains cherries, currants, and gold and dark raisins, as well as walnuts and almonds, well distributed throughout the cake. The cake itself is rich and spicy, containing almond flour, orange, and lemon peel as well as crystallized ginger, all adding to the complexity of the flavor. Plain ginger would add one note, I think, but crystallized ginger adds a flavor and a texture that steps it up a notch. Laura tells me she followed the recipe faithfully (as she does any time she tries a recipe the first time), but admits that she may have rolled just a bit more crystallized ginger into the mix. I don't care--I can eat crystallized ginger like candy.

A strange ingredient in this recipe, I think, is "apple pie spice." It just seems very un-British. Basically, it's cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and ginger. I guess I'm a spice snob, and prefer to have my spices individually named. Interestingly, though, "apple pie spice" describes a specific flavor profile, different, say, from "pumpkin pie spice," which contains cloves. So there you have it -- you have an apple pie spice profile in this cake, augmented with the citrus rind and crystallized ginger.

And of course, there's booze -- brandy (Laura used cognac). The fruit is macerated in the brandy, along with the tamarind paste, which will definitely impart a different flavor to the fruit than if it were just soaked in brandy alone. And after baking, of course, the cake was fed with brandy. The cake we tried was a young cake--only about a week old.

Before I get into the taste of the cake, I should call out one other unique ingredient - bitter orange marmalade. Yup, in addition to the orange peel, lemon peel, oh, and I forgot, there's mixed candied peel in there as well, which Laura said she bought from King Arthur Flour. It was a challenge for Laura just to collect all these ingredients, and I've heard that from other fruitcake bakers--maybe that's why there are so many commercially-made fruitcakes. People just give up! Anyway, back to the marmalade, just another addition to the macerated fruit which imparts another layer of complexity to the flavor of the cake.

On to the flavor. This cake was delicious. It reminded me of a salted caramel, a combination of richness, sweetness, and a spice/salty edge. The scent was boozy, sweet, spicy. The cake was moist but not wet, rich, and sweet. There was this note of spicy, buttery saltiness to it. Again, I know that sounds weird, and let me assure you it tasted like sweet fruitcake, but that additional note, just like the salt on a caramel, enhances the underlying sweetness and makes it that much more delicious.

What can I attribute this note to? I think it's a combination of the crystallized ginger and the tamarind paste. The crystallized ginger imparts a warm spiciness when you hit a piece. Worcestershire sauce also contains tamarind paste, and it's often used to add a deep savoriness (maybe one would call it umami?) to dishes. I think that tamarind imparts a certain je ne sais quoi to this cake, which makes all the difference.

And yeah, I went there - referring to Worcestershire sauce when talking about a fruitcake. I don't know if that comment will win any fruitcake converts. But regardless, this is a fabulous cake recipe, which I recommend!

My favorite fruitcake of all.

Wanna see my favorite fruitcake of all time? Here it is!



My wedding cake -- and of course, being Isabelle from THE Mondo Fruitcake, it HAD to be a fruitcake. Veda's Dundee Cake, to be more specific. 

This is the reason the posts on this blog have been so few--I got married on the 4th of November, and here was the beautiful cake, all fruitcake, decorated by Festive Flamingos Cakery in Bristol, Wisconsin, in the most gorgeous way! Everyone admired the cake--it was simply beautiful. The cake topper was composed of two tatted hearts edged in Swarovski crystals. Tatting is a form of lace making that I do, so I created those. Isn't the cake gorgeous? Here we are enjoying our first slice as man and wife:

He is a wonderful man: he doesn't like fruitcake at all, but willingly ate the cake I fed him. Now that's love.

Many people tried and enjoyed this cake at the reception--it was delicious. Similar to a slice of wedding cake I had shown earlier, the cake was enrobed in a layer of marzipan and fondant, both of them delicious.  I may have made a few fruitcake converts! We also had a dessert bar for non-fruitcake-eaters. And as a gift for the way out, guests had this:

Boxed slices of fruitcake to take home, which many did. To my delight, however, there were many boxes left over, so I contentedly ate my way through the remainder when I returned home from the honeymoon. It was a fabulous day, and it warms my heart to know that fruitcake was a part of it.

I'm not sure how many more fruitcakes I'll be eating this year, but I will be back on track soon, and some friends are having a fruitcake tasting at the end of the month, including some vintage fruitcake, so I'll be sure to report on that.

....because it's fruitcake season, people!!

Alabama Fruitcake

Just received correspondence from a reader who is selling fruitcakes baked from a family recipe that he is selling in small batches. I have my list of fruitcakes pretty defined for a couple of weeks at the least (really, how much fruitcake can one girl eat? I have 2 on the way), but I just checked out his website and it looks interesting. I can't speak at all for this fruitcake but thought I'd pass it along if anyone wants to check Alabama Fruitcake out.

Recipe: Veda's Dundee Cake

As with the previous recipe, this can also be halved. This was my preferred of the two cakes. This cake had a dense, pound-cake like texture. Bits of currants and orange and lemon peel were spread throughout the cake, giving it a lovely, light citrus taste. But don't forget the booze--it was there as well, so the overall taste was delicious, light as fruitcake goes but undeniably fruitcake-y.

I'm not super keen on the round cake pan that Veda calls for--although the cake made is beautiful (see photo), I find that having a hole in the center is very helpful when you're cutting a heavy cake. So you may want to use an alternate cake pan. A tube pan will work but of course, adjust your baking time. 

Veda's Dundee Cake
Fruit:
2 pounds yellow raisins
3/4 pound currants
1 pound each candied orange and lemon peel, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup whiskey, plus additional for sprinkling over finished cakes
Macerate fruit in the whiskey overnight in a large covered container.

Batter:
1 1/2 pounds unsalted butter (3 cups), softened
1 1/2 pounds white sugar (3 1/3 cups)
10 extra large eggs
Grated zest of 2 oranges
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 3/4 pounds unsifted all-purpose flour (5 1/4 cups)
1 teaspoon each baking powder and salt
2 teaspoons each grated nutmeg and powdered allspice
1/4 pound ground almonds (1 cup)

Decoration: 
1/2 pound blanched almonds for decorating
1/4 cup corn syrup

Preheat oven to 300° F and place rack in the middle of oven. Place a pan of water on the floor of the oven.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Add zests and almond extract.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and spices together and add to creamed mixture until blended. Do not overbeat. Scrape down the sides of the bowl several times. Add almonds.
Fold in fruit mixture until evenly distributed (you may need a larger bowl).
Line four 3 x 7" round pans with double thickness of parchment. Paper should extend an inch above the rim of the pan. Fill pans 2/3 full and level off with the back of the spoon.
Bake for one hour 45 minutes until almost done. Remove from oven one at a time.
Brush cake tops with corn syrup and arrange almonds quickly in concentric circles on top of the cakes. Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes to lightly brown nuts. Check with a toothpick to make sure cakes are done. Cool in pans.
Sprinkle each cake with additional 2 tablespoons whiskey.
Wrap in parchment, then foil, and refrigerate for up to 4 weeks.

Yield: four cakes.

Recipe: Veda's Dark Fruitcake

See review here. Veda uses muscovado sugar in the cake but tells me that regular US brown sugar will work fine as well. You can certainly halve the recipe if you don't want quite so much. 

And an extra note: this blog is devoted to reviewing commercially-sold fruitcakes. I've decided that I will review one homemade fruitcake a year, and so I'm done for 2010. Trust me, though, these are fabulous!!

Veda's Dark Fruitcake


1 3/4 pounds pitted dates, quartered
1 3/4 pounds pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 pound each golden and dark raisins
1 pound each candied orange and lemon peels, coarsely chopped
1 pound currants
1/2 cup brandy
1/2 cup orange juice

Mix all of the above in a covered container and let stand overnight or a few days. Shake occasionally to mix.

Batter:

1 1/4 pounds unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 pounds (3 1/3 cups) muscovado dark brown sugar OR packed standard dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
8 extra large eggs at room temperature
Grated zests of 1 orange and 1 lemon
1 1/4 pounds (4 1/4 cups) unsifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon each salt and baking powder
1 tablespooon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons each ground nutmeg and cloves

Decoration:

1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 pound nuts and 1/2 pound candied cherries

Line five 8"tube pans with parchment, grease with melted butter. Or use 6 8" loaf pans.
Preheat oven to 300° F. Put a pan of water on the floor of the oven to prevent overbrowning.
Cream the butter and sugar together for five minutes until fluffy. Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Add zests.
Mix all the dry ingredients together and add, mixing on low speed until blended. In a very large bowl, fold fruit mixture into batter with two spatulas.
Fill lined pans 3/4 full, level off with the back of a spoon to prevent air pockets. Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes until almost done. Take cakes out of the oven, brush tops with corn syrup, arrange nuts and cherries on top of each cake, and return to oven for 15 minutes more or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.

Cool completely in pans. Remove paper.

Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of brandy per cake, wrap in parchment and then foil. Age a couple of weeks before serving. Additional brandy may be added every two weeks.

Yield: approximately 14 pounds

Cakes will keep up to six months refrigerated.

Veda's Dark Fruitcake

I am MORTIFIED to learn that for some reason, I have no individual photos of these beautiful, beautiful homemade fruitcakes I was sent. Veda's cakes were both absolutely gorgeous, as you can see from the one--and only one--photo I have of the two cakes, flanking a home-made pie at my family's Christmas dinner. The dark fruitcake, towards the front, is surrounded by leftover slices of other fruitcakes I had reviewed during the year. That's the family tradition every since I created this blog - to feast on the leftovers from a season's review of fruitcakes (I freeze slices of any of the fruitcakes I deem worthy of being retained).
So as you look at the photo of my sister's beautifully festive table, the Dundee cake is towards the back, garnished with toasted almonds, while Veda's dark fruitcake is towards the front, garnished with fruit. I'll just talk about the dark fruitcake in this post, and provide the recipe as well in another post.

Veda's dark fruitcake contains pecans and walnuts as the nuts, and dates, golden and dark raisins, currants, glaceed cherries and candied lemon and orange peels for the fruit. If you've read my blog at all, you know how I'm not super keen on raisins in my fruitcake, as I think it gives it a syrupy burnt flavor, and the same was true with this cake. But that is simply an individual preference, and let me tell you, beyond that, I still ate the whole cake up. The glaceed cherries were of very high quality, and Veda even sometimes candies her own oranges and lemon peels, so all the ingredients were quite delicious. It has a delicious boozy flavor, from both brandy and rum. Yum. As recipes go, I'd say it's a keeper.

I am the luckiest girl ever

I received an unsolicited fruitcake this week. A friend had read the article about my blog and sent along a loaf of her mother's home-made family recipe.

A good commercially made (or perhaps non-profit made) fruitcake is what I have grown up with and it's what I like. But people, if the fruitcake I tried this week, as well as my boss' Christmas cake is any indication, NO commercially-made fruitcake is as good as homemade fruitcake.

This is the first fruitcake (blurry photo above) where I don't know all the ingredients off the bat, but I know that it doesn't contain booze, does have butter, and only contains a small amount of flour. You can absolutely taste the butter, it adds a great richness, and the outside is almost caramelized, giving it a lovely flavor. A secret ingredient (at least one that I can figure out from its obviousness): dates. What an excellent addition! It's different, but doesn't overpower the other fruit, just adds some distinct flavor.

Now, my main reason for creating this blog was to review the commercial fruitcakes out there, in order to give a semi-objective description of what they taste like. And that's what I'll continue to do, because man, do I have a list to get through. Who knew there were so many commercial fruitcakes out there for sale? Somebody out there must like them!! So please, although I have thoroughly enjoyed the home-made fruitcakes I've received, please don't hunt me down and hand me fruitcake. After all, it's January, and I need a hiatus!

Gosh, I love this self-assigned job--eating fruitcake. I am truly the luckiest girl ever.

Ain’t Nothin’ like the Real Thing

My boss is from England and makes Christmas cake (fruitcake for us here Americans). I’ve heard of the wonders of home-made fruitcake, and this one leaves no doubt in my mind that care, good ingredients and a good recipe lead to a delicious cake.

The Boss macerates his fruit (cherries, lemon and orange peel, currants, yellow and black raisins) in red wine first. After making the cake, he soaks it in Kentucky bourbon. The taste is actually much like the Gethsemani Farms fruitcake; they also include wine in the recipe and soak in bourbon. His cake has a much more grapey fruit flavor because of the raisins. There are NO NUTS in his recipe, which obviously affects the flavor but doesn’t detract in any way. (By the way, his theory on turnips is that they add moisture to the finished cake, which sounds plausible to me—though we agree, we still don’t want ‘em in our cake).

So what’s the white stuff on the top? It’s a very hard icing, like a fondant, concealing beneath it a thin layer of marzipan, to gild the lily. The boss “refreshes” the cake with bourbon before serving.

This is a delicious cake (and I’m not just saying that ‘cause he’s my Boss). It’s moist and boozy, and the texture is lovely—with the fruit being relatively small, it cuts nicely. The icing adds a touch of traditional sweetness, while the marzipan a lovely almond flavor. This cake absolutely eats like a meal—one slice and you’re done. But it’s a delicious slice of decadent winter richness the whole way down.

This is the one cake on this site so far that you CAN’T purchase. But you can probably find some good recipes for Christmas cake and make your own. A slice of this cake certainly inspires me to try to make one myself next year.

. . . but then, who would review all those other fruitcakes out there?