Mary of Puddin Hill back in business

A commenter clued me in that Mary of Puddin Hill is producing cakes again. I hope they're still of the same good quality. This is exciting news!

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!!

Vintage fruitcake

Was just perusing my highly-rated fruitcakes list for the fruitcake tasting in November, and I noticed that Robert Lambert is selling vintage fruitcakes: that is, a fruitcake that is one year old. To some, "vintage fruitcake" could mean "old stock." Many fruitcakes are already aged a certain number of days or weeks in order to mellow or improve the flavors, so presumably that's the point of this one.

Unfortunately in my household a fruitcake never sees its one year birthday; they get eaten too quickly. So I don't have much experience with aged fruitcakes.

The idea of a vintage fruitcake tickles my fancy.  The fact that a fruitcake can age and improve speaks to its history of being a rich cake that preserved the harvest: the result and memory of abundance. Many baked goods are freshest on the day they're made  - "day-old" goods are sold at a discount. But this cake is being sold with a premium price tag, $10 more than the "non-vintage" cakes.

What are your thoughts on a vintage fruitcake? Do you like the idea? Would you want to eat  one? What do you think it would be like? Do you age the fruitcakes you buy?

Wedding cake "to dream on"



Photo from Ang Weddings and Events

 I recently had a comment on my post about Kate and Will's wedding cake. The commenter (smartygirl) mentioned that she's Canadian and traditional wedding cake IS fruitcake. I do agree with her that this tradition is going out of style, although, please, my Canadian readers, I welcome your comments on whether this is still a tradition up north.

By the way, as you can see from the number of posts here, wedding planning and their expenses have taken over my life, so I apologize for the lack of fruitcake posts this summer. I hope to pick up a bit after the wedding, which will happen within the next couple months. However, in other news, some good friends are discussing a holiday fruitcake tasting, which I think is inspired and hilarious, so I will be sure to report back on that.

Back to wedding fruitcake, and a musing on this subject: when I was young, I received a hand-me-down coloring book (yes, I really think it was; I think there were some pages ripped out or pre-colored) about a girl getting married. First, I must comment on the memory of how extremely frustrating it is to try to color wedding dresses in a coloring book. Wedding dresses tend to be white, and that color crayon is boring and, when using it, all the lines (as in "coloring inside of") show through. And yet, coloring the wedding dress, say, purple, was very unsatisfying as well.

In any case, and to get back to something smartygirl mentioned in her comments, there was a page in the wedding coloring book where the bride gave her blushing (just a touch of Peach on the cheeks) bridesmaid a box of cake, "to dream on." Actually, I think it was written like this: "Wedding cake....to dream on!" (Yes, I was impressionable, so the exact punctuation stuck with me)

A couple of things about this: a) the tradition of sending wedding cake home with the guests has, I believe, gone out of favor at weddings lately. I remember this from when I was younger, but honestly, I haven't been to many weddings lately, so please do comment if I'm incorrect. b) I remember even back then thinking, how could you possibly stick wedding cake under your pillow, even if it's in a box, without it getting all smashed? I imagined white cake with white frosting oozing out of the cake box and all over the pillowcase, and I'm sure my mother would not have been pleased with that, even if it meant missing out on a dream of my potential groom.

The fruitcake is the missing link in this puzzle. Being a hardy and traditional wedding cake, it would fit well into a wedding cake box (or as smartygirl mentions, a doily and cellophane), and would stand up to a head laying on it overnight.

So there! Fruitcake is the wedding cake "to dream on." And if I can't find the perfect box, a paper doily and cellophane will work quite nicely--thank you smartygirl!