They left out Gethsemani Abbey, who make it with Jim Beam (they're right outside Bardstown, KY), and Holy Cross Abbey in Virginia who make it with brandy (Ava uses their recipe, with a few changes; and Holy Cross was founded out of Gethsemani anyway so they switched out brandy for the bourbon).

When I was in a Trappistine monastery, (female Trappists), We got all the different monastery fruitcakes.

Trust me - no matter who makes it, fruitcake blows.

I like fruitcake.

Too bad all the alcohol evaporates when it's baked.

i wonder how many gallons of rum would make the fruitcakes at the opinion journal pallatable

Put me squarely in the "I like fruitcake" camp. Alton Brown has a recipe that is especially good. And, it does call for a cup of rum in the batter, if I remember correctly. Whatever, I could eat the stuff everyday of the year.

Except for the fact that it has about a thousand calories per bite, of course. I don't make it these days because if I do I WILL eat it, and if I do I'll probably gain back all the 80 pounds I've lost plus fourty more to keep them company.

I love fruitcake, my father used to make fruitcake every year, then age it for five years.

Every 6 months he'd buy a 40 of lambs, remove the old cheesecloth/tinfoil from the fruitcake, resoak the fruitcake in rum, resoak the cheesecloth, rewrap it and then put it in the cellar.

I miss it, alot.

5 year old fruitcake soaked in 10 bottles of rum tastes so farkING EPIC.

dlpriest: I love fruitcake, my father used to make fruitcake every year, then age it for five years.

Every 6 months he'd buy a 40 of lambs, remove the old cheesecloth/tinfoil from the fruitcake, resoak the fruitcake in rum, resoak the cheesecloth, rewrap it and then put it in the cellar.

I miss it, alot.

5 year old fruitcake soaked in 10 bottles of rum tastes so farkING EPIC.

tell pops to use aged rum, baste it for a month and call it done. Unless he's dead. In that case, go throw a fruit cake from wall mart on his grave.

A fruitcake without fruit? That's just nutty!

Alcohol makes every baked good better. I don't know how, but it does.

I just won the Bake-off at the Xmas Party with my Jack Daniels Merry Frickin' Christmas Cake.

Caramel (made w/whiskey) and toasted pecans in the bottom of the pan, dark, dense chocolate cake batter (w/whiskey) poured on top to bake, inverted and topped with a bourbon whipped cream and a sprinking of brown sugar mixed with dark cocoa.

Happiness.

Is that a metric farkload, or imperial?

rum makes everything more tolerable. hell, it's my plan for x-mas dinner with family.

/hold the fruitcake
//pass the rum

This is now a Trappist beer thread.

I so want to try this. The "standard" version is ambrosia.

As the next step in the recipe's evolution, I propose removing everything but the rum.

God bless Alton Brown and his little spray bottle of rum.

"Just give it a little spritz now and then."

UM, unpopular as it may seem, I'm a not-fruitcake person. But, then again, I haven't had one as dscribed.

My Irish mum's pudding, however, has alcohol soaked in fruit. Trust me, if you saw saw the fruit vs alcohol/grog ratio, you'd be on the tiles just reading.

Drunk Irish parents .. FTW.

Is it a cultural black hole that I don't make my own?

Ahhh. Fuitcake.

The Rodney Dangerfield of seasonal confections.

I don't know what you're talking about. I farkin' love fruitcake.

Ristol: Is that a metric farkload, or imperial?

Imperial is way more badass than metric, therefore that's what we'll roll with.

Assumption Abbey is where I buy mine for friends. They scoff at first until they try it.

Oh, so they discovered how my mother used to make it. The woman who would publicly frown at people for having a beer. Her fruitcake would make your eyes tear up from the rum fumes. Our kitchen smelled like pirates had invaded. Nothing like getting a 5 year old tipsy on fruitcake.

Personally, I like the plum pudding with lots of candied cherries in it and a nice Devonshire cream custard on top.

phillydrifter: Too bad all the alcohol evaporates when it's baked.

I don't think there's much alcohol in it when it's baked. Most of the alcohol is brushed or sprayed on periodically over a period of weeks or months to act as a preservative.

/Has a friend in Virginia who makes really excellent fruit cake. Want.

I've made fruitcakes for years and never had complaints from fruitcake lovers. After baking and cooling the loaves in October, I soak the loaves with brandy. As a rule of thumb, I brandy the cakes once a day for a week, then once a week for a month, and then once a month after that. I have a batch of light fruitcake and one of dark going right now that will be presents to family.

"Why is the rum always gone?"

I am not a fruitcake fan. Except for my mother-in-law's homemade fruitcake with rum. Sent us two of them, along with batches of homemade cookies and of course, RUM BALLS!

/I'm the only person I know who can get drunk on rum balls

My family prefers Jamaican rum cake. As it says in the article: the rummier, the yummier. It's practically bathed in Captain Morgan's finest.

Yeah but will it affect the taste?

phillydrifter
Too bad all the alcohol evaporates when it's baked.

You're doing it wrong.

Like most of the comments above, fruitcake is meant to be soaked in booze before eating. Its reputation is seriously unwarrented, folks, this should be a Fark favorite.

Approves.

"We've all been eating cake and thought, "you know what this needs? BOOZE."

"I don't have time to eat AND drink. I've only got two hands and one of 'em's holdin' a cigarette."

Awesome... I lived right near Assumption Abbey. I hope all you people continue staying out of the Ozarks. It seems like it's still a well kept secret.

CarolynLibrarian: Trust me - no matter who makes it, fruitcake blows.

The trick is to use dried fruit, not that candied crap.
/That and nutmeg, lots of nutmeg.

Old enough to know better: God bless Alton Brown and his little spray bottle of rum.

"Just give it a little spritz now and then."

Oh hell yeah. He's surpassed Julia Child in the Best Alcoholic Chef category.

upinsmoke: rum and bacon makes everything more tolerable. hell, it's my plan for x-mas dinner with family.

/hold the fruitcake
//pass the rum

ftfy

I've been making my own for years now, replacing the candied fruit with various dried fruits that have soaked overnight in a brandy/rum mix, the shiat is farkin awesome.

Old enough to know better: God bless Alton Brown and his little spray bottle of rum.

"Just give it a little spritz now and then."

Yeah, god bless him. I found myself at 5:30 in the morning sponging up cat barf and realized a little too late that I was using the spray bottle filled with the cognac i've been spritzing the fruitcake with instead of the rug cleaner.

Which worked fine as a cleaner, by the way.

farkload of rum.

who else took a double look after reading it completely wrong the first time?

Fruit + cake = pie.

no other fruit cake should exist.

Ok, maybe muffins.

A few pointers:

If you get a pre-made fruitcake in a tin, sprinkle two tablespoons, no more, of dark rum on top of it EVERY DAY FOR A MONTH, then seal the tin again. This will make the fruitcake like a moist sponge, but not gooshy, and it will knock your socks off when you eat it. If you add too much rum at once, you will ruin it.

Other delicious holiday yummies include "gin raisins", where you get a box of golden (not black) raisins, spread them in a shallow glass cake pan, then pour a quart of gin over them. You let the open pan sit until ALL the gin is either absorbed or evaporated.

Gin raisins are not just a good snack, and can be added to baked goods, but they are alleged to be good for arthritis. Who cares?, they're tasty.

And if you're really macho, you can make brandied figs or apricots.

Candied citrus peel is just long thin strips boiled in sugar water until it is absorbed by the peel. For an extra treat, you can dip one half of them in melted, double boiler dark chocolate.

It is also the season for making pickled sliced beets and hard boiled eggs. It actually makes beets taste good enough for kids to like, and the eggs dark red and delicious. Two cans of sliced beets with syrup, 4 peeled hard boiled eggs, 2 cups cider vinegar and 2 cups water, a tablespoon of pickling spice, and a teaspoon each of salt and sugar. Takes about two weeks, refrigerated, for full flavor.

The only way to make a fruitcake palatable is to soak it in booze for a month or so before you eat it.

Mentioned in the article but not linked (new window) to is a recipe by Prof. Paul Brians. I now have a project starting next August.

Yum!

And thanks for the pointers whammer.

I was talking about fruticake with a coworker yesterday. She seem to have the best recipe:

1. Make batter.
2. Mix in fruit.
3. Bake.
4. Soak in Jack Daniel's for three weeks.
5. Enjoy.

So this is really just a story about a bunch of monks who made a rum cake?

Whoopee.

/DRTFA

Kevin5280: So this is really just a story about a bunch of monks who made a rum cake?

Whoopee.

/DRTFA

So you posted just to say that?

Whoopee.

/DRTFP

dlpriest: I love fruitcake, my father used to make fruitcake every year, then age it for five years.

Every 6 months he'd buy a 40 of lambs, remove the old cheesecloth/tinfoil from the fruitcake, resoak the fruitcake in rum, resoak the cheesecloth, rewrap it and then put it in the cellar.

I miss it, alot.

5 year old fruitcake soaked in 10 bottles of rum tastes so farkING EPIC.

It's even better when every 4th soaking is Southern Comfort.

Fruitcake is way more awesome if you marinate your own fruit and nuts instead of purchasing the bland neon crap that only tastes like citric acid.

Seriously, soak a ton of dried cherries, apricots, plums, raisins, apple slices, pineapple, and walnuts in your favorite hooch, then follow the standard recipe.

Makes a world of difference.

perennial fark-up: Fruitcake is way more awesome if you marinate your own fruit and nuts instead of purchasing the bland neon crap that only tastes like citric acid.

Seriously, soak a ton of dried cherries, apricots, plums, raisins, apple slices, pineapple, and walnuts in your favorite hooch, then follow the standard recipe.

Makes a world of difference.

Funny you should mention that--the NYT had a big story on some Carribean version of fruitcake/plum pudding, where that's what they do. They use stuff like raisins, dried figs, etc., not the red, yellow, and green stuff in fruitcake that looks like busted-up kid's toys. My dad was a huge fruitcake eater, though, so we had a fruitcake in our house every Christmas.

I like Trappists. They're hardcore. When you join up, they tell you that they hope to one day have the pleasure of burying you in their cemetery. They figure the guys who hold on until the end are the ones who made it. They're Trappists monks because they couldn't be anything else. That, you have to respect.

I'll tell you this: I've never found a fruitcake I liked until I tried one of the Trappist Abbey fruitcakes from Oregon.


You will NOT be disappointed. There's a reason they sell out so quickly.

Rum in fruitcake...
My father used to get these really good ring-shaped fruitcakes in tins with lids. He'd put a rum-soaked rag in the center, seal and put it in the cellar. Add more rum every week. After a couple of months, that fruitcake was teh bomb! Sweet, moist, the fruit was really soft and it had a real kick.

phillydrifter: Too bad all the alcohol evaporates when it's baked.

Actually, if I remember the Food Network program about the fruitcake they make at Gethsemini, they inject the fruitcakes with the bourbon after it's been baked.

I like fruitcake if my mom makes it. Most storebought fruitcake blows.

I love this stuff...fruitcake confection