In Defense of Fruitcake

After close to thirty years of calling America home, something that continues to mystify me is my adopted country’s near-universal disdain for fruitcake. What is it about this celebratory confection of butter, sugar, spices, nuts, and booze-soaked fruit that elicits such a collective shudder from the American cake-eating public? How can a society perfectly happy to eat Bunny Bread and chicken nuggets and pumpkin-spiced anything turn its back on such a delicious, shelf-stable combination? Can it really be that, when Johnny Carson made his joke about there being only one fruitcake in America that people keep sending to each other, the whole complicated, fractious nation finally found something that everyone could agree upon? Or is there some older, existential prejudice at work—one that has somehow become associated with throwing off the yoke of British oppression? Did a fruitcake go into Boston Harbor right after all the tea? If so, then take it from this Australian-raised son of homesick English ex-patriots: you’re missing out. Because when prepared properly, a home-made, fruit-studded, booze-soaked fruitcake represents the very essence of Christmas cheer.

"Trust me, if that had been among your childhood Christmas memories, you’d go nutty for fruitcake too. But even if it wasn’t, permit a foreign-born interloper to challenge the cake-bakers of America—or of Louisiana at least—to give fruitcake a(nother) chance!" —James Fox-Smith

When I was a kid, Christmas began in early November, when exotic scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger wafting through the house signified that our mother’s annual Christmas cake-making ritual was underway. For a couple of days beforehand there would be a bowl of dried fruit on the kitchen counter—raisins and currants and candied lemon and orange peel, submerged in brandy and left to soak for a couple of days. A day or two later the actual cake-making would begin. Mum would cream butter, dark brown sugar, and golden syrup with the spices, beat in eggs, flour, then fold almonds and maraschino cherries in with the brandy-soaked fruit. This batter would be piled into a huge cake tin and conveyed into the oven, and the house would fill with the heady fragrance of fruit and spices and brandy that, for both the small boy and the grownup that he has become, will forever be the scent of Christmas … no matter how hot the Australian spring (or the Louisiana fall) might be outside. When the cake emerged and was still hot, Mum would brush top and sides with more brandy before wrapping the lovely thing in foil and setting it in the pantry to do its thing. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, this cake would be unwrapped and brandy reapplied several times before finally being encased in white marzipan and icing, then decorated with more almonds, candied silver baubles, and sprigs of holly. When the big day finally arrived, after the presents were opened, the champagne popped, and the turkey demolished, this marvelous Christmas cake would be ceremoniously sliced, sampled, and declared by everyone “the best one ever!” Which of course, it always was.

Trust me, if that had been among your childhood Christmas memories, you’d go nutty for fruitcake too. But even if it wasn’t, permit a foreign-born interloper to challenge the cake-bakers of America—or of Louisiana at least—to give fruitcake a(nother) chance! You could try baking the fruitcake described above, which is made using a recipe from a Melbourne bakery named Dench Bakers that is famous for its Christmas cakes. But you don’t have to, because even here, in this land of self-professed fruitcake-haters, the Collin Street Bakery of Corsicana, Texas (aka “The Fruitcake Capital of the World”), will be baking the more than 1.5 million fruitcakes it sells each year, and making a liar out of Johnny Carson over and over again. You’ll find Nina Flournoy’s article about America’s most famous fruitcake bakery at this link. If you’re feeling really ambitious (or seditious), the recipe for Dench Bakers’ Christmas cake here. Give it a try, and together, perhaps we’ll succeed in shifting the national fruitcake sentiment index, one glorious, brandy-soaked slice at a time.

Wishing you and yours a very happy holiday season.