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I'm running late this year, but got my fruitcakes (four loaves) baked last night. Sliced one as soon as I took it out of the oven and it was delicious! Now to pour on the rum.

My recipe calls for no candied fruit, peels, or citron. I adapted it from my grandmother's recipe.

Anyone else like fruitcake?

We LOVE fruitcake except the really cheap fruitcake sold in "dime stores" (now Dollar stores I guess!) -- I get my "real" fruitcake from Collin St. Bakery in Texas, I make Dundee cakes (a short of fruitcake) in early November and enjoy with December teas, I have a recipe for a chocolate fruitcake (which starts with a chocolate cake mix, has nuts, maraschino cherries and candied pineapple in it) and this year I made a friend's Grandmother's brazil nut cake which the friend's mother insists is NOT a fruit (but what else is a cake that has mostly dates, maraschino cherries, brazil nuts and pecans and very little flour sugar?)

I guess I'm a fruit cake junkie!

So what is your recipe -- would you share?

Martha

I baked my own once but it was expensive and made so much that I didn't do it again -- I do make the Dundees but they make four little loaves -- one per week for the time before Christmas!

Martha

Yes I saw your Dundee cakes...they looked delicious!

We (being my mother and I) tried several Collin St. Bakery fruitcakes but there was something 'wrong' with each one. One day I walked into her house and she was smiling. She went to the kitchen and came back waving a piece of paper - her mother's fruitcake recipe. (Which thinking just yesterday I don't know where it went! I must've given it back to DM for safe keeping but it hasn't materialized since her death - dang it!) Since GM used fruit she canned/preserved herself, I adapted the recipe.

Since neither DM or myself like the candied fruit - especially citrus peelings and citrons...wish I had a slice now. I do have my recipe...BRB

It's on my blog with pictures:
http://keepyouinstitches.blogs...arch/label/fruitcake

Not Your Ordinary Fruitcake
Inspired by Ruby Durham Sanford

1 large jar red Maraschino cherries, drained
1 medium jar green Maraschino cherries, drained
1 large can crushed pineapple, drained
1 small package orange slice candy, chopped
1 (1 lb.) package white raisins
1 (1 lb.) package dates
4 cups pecans, chopped
1 package Craisins
1 (14 oz.) package coconut
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 pound butter
2 cups sugar
10 eggs

You are going to need a BIG container to mix this…I use a jelly kettle. Chop all fruit and nuts and mix together. Combine flour, baking powder, and soda; add to fruit and mix well. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add first mixture and mix well. Bake in two greased tube cake pans at 250 degrees for 2 hour and 45 minutes to 3 hours. You can also bake this in four loaf pans.

The good thing about this recipe is that you can add something else! The Craisins are a recent addition. A short while back, Mama gave me a bag of dried tart cherries. And, man were they ever tart! We ate a few before I decided that I better seal them and put them in the freezer or they would be gone. When Mama handed me a bag of pecans (they are costly this year and I had decided not to spend that much money for nuts therefore not making the fruitcakes) I chopped the dried cherries and into the mix they went. I didn't put as many Maraschino cherries in this time but still worried about adding the Craisins and the dried cherries...concerned that the batter might be too dry. It's not. Especially if you sprinkle a bit of rum over the fruitcake and put the dome back over the cakeplate. ;o)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KeepYouInStitches,

Looks good.

Martha

Yes - my family and I love fruitcake and I have made traditional fruitcakes - from "Joy of Cooking" recipes - to my own recipe, gleaned from collecting fruitcake recipes over the past 50 years. But it is expensive to make - and it takes time. I won't bother making them unless I can make half a dozen of them at a time. My youngest son loves fruitcake too and always wants me to make it. But I won't be making it this year - it's just too expensive. (Of course, it also takes a lot of brandy or rum to soak them properly - that's expensive too.) But I like the traditional glaceed fruits - the good quality ones. We even love citron.
Years ago, specialty stores would sell the large pieces of glaceed fruits so that it was kept quite juicy - and then it needed to be cut up into pieces.
I've also made Dundee cake - which I love - and other kinds of holiday cakes - incuding ones with gumdrops in them.
All of them are wonderful - and it's wonderful to read about what all of you bake for your holiday celebrations.

When I was a young bride, Woolworth's and some other big stores downtown would always get glaceed fruits in for the holidays and you would buy what you wanted by the pound. Alas, those stores are gone as well as the fruit -- you buy it in little containers now. But at least we can still find the fruit -- at Wal Mart -- that's the only store in town that sells it.

Martha