The History of Fruitcake
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- Опубликовано: 18 дек 2023
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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza | IG @worldagainstjose
PHOTO CREDITS
Stollen: By Whitney - originally posted to Flickr as Stollen, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Christmas Cake: By James Petts from London, England - Christmas cake, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Observation Hill Memorial Cross: By User:Barneygumble, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Claxton Bakery Sign: By Jud McCranie - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
#tastinghistory #fruitcake
Cheap fruitcake holds a special core memory to me. I grew up in a poor family, so anything we do get for Christmas is wholly appreciated. This meant even a very dry, dense, bland-tasting fruitcake is a blessing. I didn't always have the luxury of being able to afford my school lunches, so cutting up a fruitcake no one was eating at home and spreading it out as "lunch" throughout all of January is a core memory I will never forget. Thank you whoever invented fruit cake. 🥺
That's so sweet! I didn't think reading about cheap fruitcake would make me tear up, but here we are.
I wish more people had this level of appreciation whether or not one has grown up poor or well off.
I am blessed by your happy memory, thank you for sharing this treasure of memories.
@@LW1TokBe appreciative of what? The food that is hardly even food anymore? Yummy chemicals, really hits the nostalgia button.
@@mrcroob8563 Still better than no food at all. That was kind of the point of the story.
One cake to rule them all,
One cake to greet them,
One cake to bring them all,
And in the kitchen, eat it.
One cake to last through months,
One cake to live through years,
One cake to outlast them all,
And in the kitchen, greet them.
Beware of any ring found in fruit cake.
Love it! ^-^
@@zennvirus7980 Nah, bro....
It's "and with the twinkie, greet them." ^-^
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I just love how this channel is not just Max telling things, but a community helping each other out when things go wrong in a recipe
My mother made a fantastic fruitcake, moist with great flavor. As time went on, she made it with friends who wanted their own fruitcakes. She would bake, house and feed the fruitcakes until Christmas and then delivered them to the friends. It was a lot of effort, mostly for her. When she discovered a recipe for fruitcake cookies, she never made the cake again. Not the same at all....
Mom died in 96. My brother recently found her lost recipe and will bake it next September for Christmas.
Thanks for the great episode and best wishes for the Season and the coming year!
I think your brother should experiment and make the fruitcake this winter, just to make sure he does it right, and he should send you some of it. Just so you can check that he made it right. 🤭💕
Please share your recipe when you've tested it please.
Please share the recipe!!! 🥺🥺🥺
Good luck with the recipe! I know what it's like to have one of those fantastic recipes from the house matron go lost and for years you try to find it or at least recreate it, it's nice when you actually manage to find it. Grandma make a fruit cake (not the same as this one) and it got lost for at least ... 20 years or so. Nobody could remake the recipe despite having some idea of how it was done, until recently we found some of her old letters and the recipe tucked in. It tastes even better than i remembered, so i hope you find the same conclusion. :)
I love fruitcake, most people I know who have actually tried a nice moist fruit cake has liked it.
I agree. I've had some deliciously moist and flavorful fruit cakes in the past. It's been a while since I've had a good one.
I think hating fruit cake almost became a sort of meme over the years. People who have barely ever had it, if ever, would act like fruit cake was an unholy thing.
Just about every fruit cake I've ever had, I enjoyed.
Grew up around store bought fruitcake and HATED it. Even when my grandmother would "season" it over the month with Whisky. Then eventually got introduced to a fruitcake made by Assumption Abbey. It's monks who make their money through selling Fruitcakes, with the original recipe being given to their abbey by a French Chef. I became a believer that, as with many things, you don't actually hate/dislike something. You just like a BAD version of it. I still wouldn't go out of my way for it year 'round, but I do like it enough to buy one once or twice a year for festivities.
@@Orzorn At this point I would say it's less meme and more tired old joke. Tee-hee, lets make fun of fruitcake. Yawn.
I totally agee, a good fruit cake is SO delicious. I'm currently counting down the days until we can cut into my mums homemade fruitcake. She feeds it brandy for months, all in anticipation of christmas eve x
A fruit cake story: Mom made a fruit cake for my uncle one Christmas. She soaked it in peach brandy for months before sending it to him. My uncle set the cake on the dining table to serve after dinner. Everyone had gone out into the living room to socialize before dessert. After awhile, one of the cats came in--walking sideways. Apparently, it really enjoyed the fruitcake!
My WW2 vet grandfather loved fruitcake. He grew up during the great depression so food was food to him I had to eat cheap TV dinners growing up because my mother's been broke my whole life. Not to get too sappy but my love of fruitcake originates with his love of fruitcake I'll never understand why people "hate" it
My grandmother was the same! She'd bake the cakes (one for each branch of the family) sometime in July. Then she'd stack them all in a tall, tin cylinder. She'd fill the cyliinder with some kind of brandy or alcohol in general. She'd tip the tin over and roll it around frequently to distribute the liquid, and let them soak it all up for the next several months till it was time to pack and ship them. The ones we received were always glorious but the cakes weighed a ton! And even a small piece could get you a little loopy.
The fruit cake eating cat reminds me of one of our dogs we had when I was a teenager. We had a table full of homemade Christmas goodies. While we were at my grandparents house he managed to pull the chairs out from that table and ate everything. Then he hid the plastic platters they were in and threw up in my bed. That was one sick dog.
Everybody knows Christmas just ain't Christmas without a drunk cat😂😂😂
@@cyndicook7755 Or a very sick dog. 😁😁
I am born and raised and still living in rural Ireland for context.
My mother made a christmas fruit cake every year my whole life, her whole life actually (her mother died young so my mother was the person who cooked and baked for her widowed father). She would bake it in November (any earlier and my Dad would have it eaten before christmas lol) and soak it in brandy or whiskey every couple of weeks.
My eldest sister got married in 1984 and my mother baked all 4 tiers of her wedding cake (fruit cake) and made the marzipan layer and my mother's cousin (who was a cake decorating genius, not professional) did the royal icing and the sugar decorations. It looked fabulous and according to my sister, tasted fabulous too. I was only 7 at the time and couldn't have regular cake (medical issues) so I don't remember the wedding cake specifically but I know my mother also baked a version for me every christmas and birthday, using my dietary restrictions, and that was magnificent.
That's so sweet. What wonderful memories we can have around food and family
@@yippee8570 so true. My mother and father are both gone now. I cook a lot of the things for my family that my mother cooked for us and I always have a memory or experience pop into my head from a time she made it for us. It is mostly lovely but sometimes, I admit, it takes my breath away with the sudden grief. Same with smells of foods she made or loved. Food is such a link to family and the past and it is one reason I love Max's channel so much
@@lellyt2372 - I know what you mean. My mother loved and would buy Pfefferrnusse cookies every Christmas. Me - I could easily live without them, but the nostalgia is so overwhelming that I cannot NOT buy them every year in honor of Mama's memory. The only compromise i make is buying the imports, not the dry US version with the powdered sugar all over them. You're welcome, Germany. (Here's to you, Mama.)
What an endearing life history! Love it! 🥮🥮🥮
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist-ok i repented what now
My mother baked fruit cake. She used honey to temper the molasses, and never used citron (as we all loathed it) she used finely chopped dried apricots, golden currants, and raisins. Also, she made something she called "hard sauce" which was butter and brandy with sugar, so it was quite syrupy, and doused the cake after poking it with skewers every morning and night or a week. They were lovely cakes.
I have had it like this before as well in Virginia.
We all hate those colored citron candies! Yuck.
That was my mother's style of hard sauce as well, though usually a blend of whiskey and rum. Haven't seen anyone else use this style!
@@abydosianchulac2 Mom has English ancestry...maybe it's an English thing?🤷♀
@@lindacgrace2973Hmm, my family on that side had always claimed they were 100% German(-American); it'd be interesting if there was a bit of drama there people had buried 😜
@@abydosianchulac2 Or, my hypothesis is completely off-base! I can be pretty sure that my family history is accurate. I did a DNA test and it came back 97% British Isles, and 3% Western Mediterranean (my Dad's black Irish). Sooo...my guess was wrong.
The most unfairly maligned cake.
I'm a fruitcake
I agree. It is SO GOOD
I love fruit cake. I always looked forward to making it with my Mom.
A high quality fruit cake soaked in top shelf brandy for a month+ is a rare treat that needs to be tried if you have an opportunity.
What can you use if one of your loved ones is an alcoholic? She's been sober for 6 years and I do not want to go down that path again
It's still very common as a wedding cake in the UK, though becoming less so. One of the reasons for its persistence is that its longevity permits another wedding tradition: the couple would send a piece to everyone who had sent a present but were unable to attend.
And it’s delicious!
It is here in Canada as well.
All of the weddings I've been to have had fruitcake _somewhere_ a lot of the time it's been the top tier which works as it keeps nicely for the one year anniversary :-) but then all the fruitcake I know gets made 6 months in advance and cheerfully marinated in brandy! (as an American who spent 20 years in the UK)
And the top layer was traditionally kept as a christening cake to celebrate the 1st baby. Traditionally arriving within the 1st year if the couple were lucky.
Oh, yeah... I'm not in the UK, but back when we were selecting cakes for my wedding one of them was a fruitcake and the rest were those crazy disgusting concoctions that are supposed to look nice but are barely edible. So I asked, why is there a fruitcake in the mix? Turns out it's because the fruitcake is so dense it could hold its own shape in a multilayered wedding cake without bracing or other forms of support. Sadly, we had to forgo the fruitcake because we had Muslim friends coming.
I'm from the southwest of Germany. My grandmother made "Birnenbrot" - pear bread - every year for the holidays. Dried pears are the basic fruit of the bread along with other fruits like dates, figs, plums, plus hazelnuts and walnuts. It's baked like a bread in form of a loaf. I try to carry on the tradition
I'm also from southwestern germany and i grew up with "Früchtebrot" - fruit bread (also called "Hutzelbrot" in the dialect of the city i grew up in), but it is basically the same thing :D We bought ours usually from a local bakery and ate it with a nice layer of butter! Now I really crave fruit bread, haven't had it during the last holliday season 🤤😅
Haven't read all the comments, so someone else may already have said - a tradition in the UK is to eat Christmas (fruit)cake with a hunk of cheese - traditionally Wensleydale, but I've always preferred Stilton with mine. And a glass of port. I'd far rather have fruitcake than sponge cake anyday, especially those ghastly sponge cakes covered in vast quantities of sugary frosting.
When I was a wee boy, my family moved down from Scotland to Yorkshire.
They put cheese on top of the slices of Christmas cake.
I was appalled.
But I tried it... and have never gone back since. Such a wonderful explosion of contrasting yet complimentary flavour blew my mind away.
And I'm so looking forward to it again this year.
Many Christmas to you and yours!
@revbobuk - As a cheese fancier, this sounds like a wonderful idea, like warming slices of apple pie with cheddar cheese on top. But as a port fancier (the more expensive, the better), it doesn't need any accompaniments.
@@jimolygriff
We have an unusual custom of placing a slice of sharp.cheddar on ginger snap cookies and wash them down with sweet fresh pressed apple cider. So, it's a similar concept.
@@sylphofthewildwoods5518 That sounds delicious! I'll have to try that.
I prefer cheddar with the cake. It's very much a northern tradition
My dad, when he was stationed in Korea, was very popular with his fellow soldiers because his aunt would send him a fruitcake--commercially purchased--into which she had slowly added an entire bottle of rum and let it sit to age in a closet for six months before sending. Heh. Perhaps something to try with your own second loaf, and then feature on DRINKING History. Deborah L. Davitt
Your aunt must be my soulmate :)
The recipe we have (which max might be interested to know is originally the recipe for the Queen of the UKs Christmas cake, I think maybe her wedding cake too) we soak all the dried fruit in booze for a day or two, so although the cake itself is still kind of dry, the fruit is nice and plump
Just to add (because I love the family connection) my great grandfather was involved in making and decorating the queen's wedding cake.
Actually, I have some vague recollection that in the attic we have a tiny piece of the queen's wedding cake.
I believe Max actually made a video on Queen Elizabeth's wedding cake
The recipe my family uses soaks the fruit in booze for a couple of weeks
Can you think if any non alcohol alternatives for soaking the dried fruit . I don’t drink and have several members of my family are recovering alcoholics so I avoid adding alcohol to baked goods . Thank you !
I grew up off the grid, and baking the holiday fruitcakes in our wood cook stove was the highlight of the season. We did it in November and aged them. My family was religious, so no rum, but we put simple syrup on them and wrapped them up tight in plastic and put them in a cool place to sit it out until the holidays.
Our wedding cake in 1961 was fruit cake. The groom’s cake was a white cake. The reason you age fruit cake is that it becomes moist. Brushing with brandy helps that process, but doesn’t replace the aging component. Traditional fruit cakes were baked in October in readiness for the Christmas feast. Love your channel! 🇨🇦🎄🎄
My grandmother always prepared the dried fruit by "pickling" it in brandy in a pickling jar for several weeks before making the cake. The liquor left in the jar was brushed onto the finished cakes. I think the double alcohol whammy is what made her cakes so popular!
It also keeps the rather dry cake moist.
Total props for the excellent LOTR reference. Anyone that can extend it to include how rings (and coins) used to be put inside twelfth night cakes will win the internet for the day, LOL
I made this cake yesterday, i can tell you that this is the best and tastiest thing that i have ever baked. The spices give it such a deep and wintery flavor, almost reminding me of Dutch kruidkoek. The molasses makes it super caramelly and the edges of the cake that are a bit darker? Crunchy and chewy heaven. Using the brandy over the cake gives really gives it a little burn in the throat. Absolute perfection, 10/10
Thanks so much for reporting on the recipe featured in the video, and in such a descriptive way!
I was thinking about kruidkoek as well! Even looks like it
One year when i worked at a hotel, I made fruitcake for our Christmas and I started by soaking the fruit in a brandy and stout mixture in 16 gallon pails starting in August. I baked the cakes at the end of October, did another month of brandy-washing and then everyone for December got a square of fruitcake. It wasn't always eaten, but it was moist AND delicious, and I stand by a brandy and stout combo to this day for hydrating my dried fruit for one
I do the same thing too… Starting in August, but I base mine and use an injector with rum. quite potent when you do that every two weeks by the time you hit December.
Brandy and stout sounds good, my family's recipe uses cream sherry for the soak and turns out pretty sweet.
I used to soak my fruit and peel mix in brandy for 12 months, adding brandy to the mix every few weeks as the fruit hydrated and stirrng everything through. Over time the mixture developed a wonderfully smooth flavour profile and had the most amazing 'sauce' develop around the fruit. Do that and there's no way you get a dry fruit cake. I did this while living in Beijing and there were lots of fruit cake haters among the expats who ate it, but everyone loved that fruit cake. So I just don't understand how everyone complains about dry cake. It means you did not soak your fruit in enough alcohol!
I don’t know if it’s only a British thing, but there are two different types of fruit cake here - farmhouse and Genoa. The one you have here is farmhouse, but the wedding and Christmas cakes are almost always Genoa cakes with icing - really moist, sticky, and gorgeous, much more pressed fruit than actual cake. So it’s not quite so odd to have them at royal weddings when you look at it like that.😅
I remember the only fruit cake I ever had were those or slices that were sold at supermarkets, so at first I had no idea why he kept referring to fruit cake as being dense or dry when the ones I had weren't.
I remember in the 90s that there was some... ill-conceived push to have genoa-style fruitcakes become The Thing, and while I'm sure an actual freshly-prepared Genoa fruit cake is great, the mass-market lumps of dried fruits and nuts were kinda disgusting. I certainly thought fruit cakes lived up to the jokes all the way until I actually tried a variety that was more flour-based and was like "oh... these CAN taste good"
@@lucinae8510 I did think there was some confusion between the types going on, and now I’m wondering if Genoa cake not a thing in the US? I know that’s what I’m planning to make over Christmas! ❤️
@@Melissa.Garrett I don't know about the US, but I have had fruitcake here in Montreal, Canada that fits the description of the Genoa fruitcake. We seem to get a lot more British stuff here than in the US. It was so delicious, I was shocked. It was very dense and was best sliced very thin. If I could find that, I would happily get it. It was a friend who found a store selling these and she gave them to a lot of friends. For all I know, they were imported from England.
Yes, that what I make, the flour mixture is just enough, used to hold it together
Outside of the US, fruitcake still remains a standard wedding cake and is still pretty widely eaten. (Said as an Australian)
Also in the Anglican church on mothering Sunday (the fourth Sunday of Lent where you go back to your "mother church") they give out simnel cake, a type of fruit cake.
I feel like Australia is still much closer in traditions to Brittain and a cake you can bake in winter and serve with a heavy does of alcohol at Christmas (without using an oven in the summer heat) is still pretty popular.
I was thinking the same thing! A fruitcake with marzipan makes a really sturdy base for a big, tiered wedding cake
As a yank, I wasnt fond of fruit cake as a kid. That all changed in early adulthood during my military service when I got a taste of a good one.
Now, it aint christmas till the fruit cake comes out.
@@Elizabeth-iv2pr Max did a video on simnel cake way back!
@@GringatTheRepugnant totally forgot I had watched that one 🤣
You're the only one who could associate the Ring with a fruit cake, compare Mordor with a kitchen and Sauron with a middle-class housewife 🤣 I just loooove your videos, we learn, we laugh, we salivate, please don't stop !!!!
I remember my grandfather shipping us a fruitcake in the mail for christmas. It came in a tin painted with pictures of christmasy activities from a bygone era (eg sleigh rides, caroling, etc). I actually liked it, but struggled to cut a piece on my own. This video reawakened that memory in me.
I've never understood the fruitcake hatred. I've had and made several excellent fruitcakes, and they're particularly good soaked in brandy!
Absolutely! For me, it's a joint favourite alongside carrot cake.
That hate happened because of cheap dry mass-produced fruit cakes that people buy around the holidays. That stuff isn't nearly as palatable. Whenever it comes to baking, having it fresh will always be better.
@@OutOfNamesToChooseo man I hate fruitcake and carrot cake. But glad you like them!
@@ZakTheFallenpeople also hate it because of the fluorescent fruit in it. It was one of those stupid commercial ideas that American bakers added for color, and because fake stuff is always cheaper than real fruit and real nuts, not because it tastes good.
@@ZakTheFallen Eating a slice of 'American Cheese' does not convince people that all cheese is bad. People should extend their consumer savvy to fruitcake and realize that a 'cheap dry mass-produced' fruitcakes are no more representative of all fruitcakes than McDonald's apple pies are representative of all pies.
Y'know what makes dense, dry cakes really good, counterintuitively?
Slicing them up thin and then drying them out even more in the oven to make them into toasty, crispy little cake slices.
Now THOSE are absolutely killer with a post-holiday dinner coffee.
That actually sounds delicious. I'd drink tea with that instead of coffee though.
Sliced, toasted and buttered, the only way to eat it! Especially good with a nice coffee
Sliced, toasted, buttered AND served alongside some mulled wine!
Also, served with cheese. Like a nice mature cheddar. Toasted, buttered, a thick slice of cheese on top, and a pot of tea
@@carliegriffiths6290 now that actually sounds delicious will be trying this on Monday for sure!
I've been helping my grandmother make these sodding things since I was small - the ones with that creepy candied fruit. She is over 90 and I helped her again this year and mailed them around, including extra rum in the glaze. I moved to KY and decided to use dried fruit hydrated in bourbon and then age it for 6 months, spritzing with bourbon a couple of times per week for the aging duration.
0:46 the hard tack meme is your greatest contribution to humanity and I thank you for it.
Hi Max, what you referred to around the 7:20 mark or so would be a great basis for an episode: Making the Ancient Sumerian for of fruit cake with dates, raisins, and cheese, and comparing it with our modern, Western, notion of a fruit cake.
I agree. My mind wandered to a nice Danish when Max mentioned fruits and cheese 👀
When you floured the fruit, my immediate thought was "oh, he remembered the comments on the pannetone video" 😄 I love how cozy we all are here, and I can't believe it's been plural years since then!
My grandparents wedding cake in the 40s was fruit cake with white royal icing. For their 70th anniversary, I remade the design. The top tier was rice crisp cake with dried fruit as a nod and gluten free all in one. It was their favorite layer!
Oh wow, that's great. What's rice crisp cake? I googled and was only shown 'recipes' 😂 for Rice Krispies squares hahaha. Is there another name for it?
When I was a young child - a supplier that worked with my father would send a Fruitcake as a holiday gift. It would arrive late September/early October - and my father immediately started soaking it in bourbon. One of my favorite childhood memories is 'the' Christmas dinner dessert - piece of that fruitcake with homemade whipped cream - so delicious. Of course today I am not certain if it was the fruitcake or the bourbon that made it taste so good. Thank you for honoring the fruitcake.
In the Caribbean we make a fruitcake called "black cake". The fruits used in it can be soaking in a wine/rum mixture from year to year. You just top up the old mixture with new one once you use from it. Oh, it is commonly used as a wedding cake too .
Now that’s fruitcake I can get into.
My mom is from Ocho Rios and made this every year. When that vacuum sealed jar in the back of the coat closet came out we'd all get so excited because Christmas was close. Everyone who came by during the holidays got some spiked egg nog and slice of that boozy fruitcake.
Ive got a black cake that I am religiously soaking in rum twice a week. I haven't had on since my guyanese granny passed away. I can't wait!
Wonder if that method would be better or worse than dried fruit. I'm personally not a big fan of the taste of dried fruit, or of fruit cooked with added sugar for that matter. The flavors of the sugar in the fruit & the white sugar clash, for me.
@MrChristianDT this cake is very moist, and dried.
Man, that story at the end about the inured soldier getting fruit cakes every year was sweet. Entire generations of the families maintaining that friendship is pretty touching.
Injured and inured, verily
That's actually amazing to learn that an acquaintance would be so dedicated to their companionship with someone that they and their family would exchange a fruit cake for Christmas for generations....talk about life long friendship. I wish people still did that now. It's sad that friendships don't last long nowadays
In 1948, my parents met another young family in military housing (the fathers were in the US Army Reserve and back in their home town). The mothers became fast friends and started a tradition of having Thanksgiving and a Christmas season dinner together. We've missed a few when my family didn't have someone in town, but this past Thanksgiving, we of the second and third generations realized our holiday dinner tradition had reached 75 years. That's especially remarkable because neither family is very large. We just like each other. So, we relics of a bygone era are out there. You just have to look.
My introduction to fruitcake came from the MREs that my dad used to pick up on base and that we'd take with us hunting or fishing when I was a kid in the 80s. I fell in love with them (along with the maple nut cake) because of how dense and flavorful they were. Since then, I've found some really good ones, including this amazing fruitcake I get every couple of years from a monastery down in Virginia.
My uncle once told me how his platoon was inundated with regifted fruitcakes in Vietnam. He said they never tasted so delicious as then, since the rations weren't great.
I got a fruitcake with my Christmas stocking one year. It was July because the mail was late. It was so good. It disappeared quickly along with the stale gingerbread cookies. One of the traditions in my family is that everyone gets a toy. That year I got a small wind up car in my stocking. I had it on the desk where I was working on supply acquisitions. I heard a noise behind me and there were two officers sitting on the floor running the car back and forth between them. I still laugh when I think about it. (Deep inside each of us beats the heart of a child)
German fruitcake, or Christstollen, comes in many different forms but mostly its either with dried fruits or with layers of marzipan. Its also baked with crushed almonds, rum and yeast most often, the taste is very distinctive! After baking its immediately drenched in melted butter and drowned under powdered sugar. Merry Christmas to everyone out there!
That's more of a bread.
@@unclesteve8091 eeeeh i dont think so at all. how is it like bread? it tastes and looks nothing alike
I remember my mom baking stollen for Christmas. It was more of a bread, flavored with cardamom (and of course stuffed with fruit): if you wanted to get fancy, you formed the dough into a braid, and then iced it after baking. Great stuff, especially when toasted and buttered...
I love stollen. I have only had it from Woolworths here in South Africa. And it does have a bread-like texture. It has raisins and citrus peel in the dough and some marzipan in the middle. Covered in rum, butter, and dusted with icing sugar. Lovely.
I love stollen ❤
My grandmother made 6 fruitcakes for every Christmas season and they were delicious. She would start them in October because she had to pour a little brandy on them every few days. They were so flavorful and dense - but not dry. With all that brandy on them, I'm surprised my mother and aunt let us kids eat it for breakfast, with a little softened butter...yum.
My father-in-law tells a story of helping move a relative, and finding a fruitcake made by his grandmother, who had passed years before. It was still good, apparently.
I make fruitcake every year (in October) and soak it in rum, then sending out small loaves to far flung family so we can all enjoy a bit of Christmas together. The flour in the fruit is a great tip, but another tip for those "low and slow" cake bakes is to put a pan of water in the oven underneath the cakes on the rack below. The moisture in the oven really helps with the texture of the cake.
I love fruitcake! I asked my mom to send me one every Christmas. My family is Appalachian, so it gets soaked in wine for six weeks before we have it. Didn’t matter what age you are, you were always allowed to have some. Needless to say, our fruit cakes were never dry.
Okay, this gets a bit grim, but my family found it both comforting and funny!
When my grandma passed in the spring of '18, we had to go through her personal belongings. This, of course, started with her little bedroom... and the little closets therein. We found a fruitcake, wrapped in tin foil, with a card from the person she received it from. "Dear Mae, I hope this fruitcake finds you well. We talked about fruit cake over the last bridge game, and I thought I would try Mom's old recipe. Tell me what you think!"
Grandma thought enough of the person it came from to keep it, but... it was in her closet. For what we assumed was a year at least. Because she hadn't played bridge since '16. The cake didn't look or smell spoiled, but none of us were brave enough to cut into it. We had a good laugh about it for sure. Said fruitcake was even mentioned at her memorial.
Cute story. Thanks for sharing. Apparently though your grandmother didn’t find it wonderful enough to eat the whole thing.
It was probably ok to eat. A mate of mine kept one layer of his wedding cake ( fruit cake) for twenty years. Said it was still perfect. But, it got fed with three tablespoons of brandy every year.
@@kimwhite7191 what lasted longer? The marriage or the cake?
It would have probably been fine, if it was a good fruit cake in the first place. We lost one in a house move for two years once, found it in the garage; it was one of the nicest ones mum had made!
Good fruit cake needs to mature for at least 10 years according to a chef before eating it. Years back when it was one of the big royal weddings they were interviewing the chef doing the wedding cake and he was lamenting that the fruit cake would only be a year or so old when eaten, apparently it needs to be at least several years old and regularly soaked in alcohol for flavour - and probably preservation - as well.
Even shop bought ones - Aldi or Lidl usually, sometimes M&S - taste better the Xmas after I buy them. This years Xmas cake is an Aldi one from 2 years ago, tastes fabulous.
I make fruit cake for my dad every year because he likes it. Last year I made a cranberry orange version that was so damn good, I make it every year now. Let it mature and feed it with dark rum mixed with cranberry orange syrup from Haloween till Christmas. It’s so good and definitely worth the time.
@livbirka403 - Sounds very good. Thanks for the tip. Is the batter similar to this Miller recipe?
@@MossyMozart very similar, but slightly lighter in texture
I had fruitcake once as a kid forever ago, and actually liked it. Maybe because my grandma actually knew how to make it good. I don't know how, but she was a WWII bride, and both her and my grandpa served.
I thank them for both of their services.
That's pretty cool. Did they meet during the war or were they already together when they joined?
I honestly didn't know they had women enlisted in ww2
It might have something to do with rations during the war. It was probably easier to get dry fruit than fresh, so she probably had more experience baking with dried fruit.
We can get fresh fruit most of the year now, so we probably lost a lot of techniques from that era.
Just a guess. I have no idea. Your grandparents sound awesome tho!
@yerp. They called them the women's auxiliaries in the States. Each branch had one, like WAAC's for the army or WAVE's for Navy. My grandmother was a WAVE.
German "Stollen", especially the "Dresdner Christstollen" (variant from Dresden) is very very popular in Germany during Christmas time. It's also made with raisins, candied orange peel, almonds, several spices and lots of butter. After baking it is covered in a thick layer of powdered sugar. It's usually prepared around mid november, then wrapped in tinfoil it should sit in the fridge until Christmas days.
It's delicious!
And it's a million times nicer than fruitcake
I like swollen, but fruitcake is my favorite
It's become very popular in the UK too, which I'm very happy about because it's so delicious.
My favorite!
A very similar fruit cake is the Italian Pinza, it's typically eaten around Christmas or Epiphany (January 6th) in Veneto and Friuli. The fruits are raisins, dried figs, nuts and fennel seeds, and it's packed with grappa - which is basically a kind of brandy! Always interesting to see the similarities. It's a kind of old school cake, mostly baked by poor/rural families. I remember well the times I used to eat it at night at the epiphanic bonfires! a nice rural tradition from the north east of Italy
I really hope you keep moistening the rest of it with Brandy and giving us updates on the flavor profile over time! It would be really cool to know how the flavor develops 1month/6months/1yr
If you don't like fruitcake as it stands, know that you can sub in the fruit you like! I never liked it until I switched out the raisins, currants and citron/lemon for dried strawberries, dates and apple!! The flavour profile of spices is very forgiving and honestly that combo makes DELICIOUS fruitcake!!!
So true! I make mine with dried cherries, cranberries, apricots, and dates…so much better to me than raisins and currants.
I was thinking of a pineapple, mango, and macadamia nut fruitcake. I think I could get into that!🍍🥭
Native Texan here. Collin Street Bakery fruitcakes are the BOMB! Besides all the fruit Max incl in his Civil War ear recipe, they incl candied cherries and LOTS of Texas pecans. The "cake" part simply exists to hold all that other yummy stuff together 😄
YESS!! 🤤 🙏😍
My brother used to send a Collins fruitcake to my parents every year.
Collin Street's cakes are a.m.a.z.i.n.g.
Most people have only experienced commercial--cheap, flavorless, over sugared--fruitcakes since the 60s. Now, a well made, fruit rich, less sugar, homemade one is delightful. And yes, it's dense/heavy--but one slice is a meal in itself. I bake small ones for my friends/family, For various reasons, those ones don't get doused in an alcohol. Mine, however, gets bathed in apricot brandy over as long a span of time as I can hold off from eating the thing. the alcohol works od the sugar in the cake to make it stick together--and makes it that much more dense. Chemistry, gotta' love it.
I'll have to try this cake, Max. Dousing with brandy is the ticket. My favorite Collin Street Bakery fruitcake is the Texas Pecan Cake. Their DeLuxe Fruitcake is super, but the Pecan Cake is marvelous. Yum! Merry Christmas everybody! 🎄🎄🎄
We used to make the 7-hour round-trip to go buy their fruitcakes. Now we can get them at HEB (local Texas grocery store).
I’ve been making Jamaican Black Cakes since about 2020. I’ve got about three jars of fruit aging in rum and brandy at any given time and start a new one every Christmas, so ideally in a year or so I’ll have a steady rotation of 3-year-aged fruit mix.
I’m not completely sure whether it makes it taste better yet - I’d love to see Max or Adam Ragusea do some sort of test.
We call this rum pot and use it as a sauce or compote
In Nederland this is called ''boeren jongens'' raisins aged in rum.
I used blueberries that were aged in vodka since ... 2016! Very good flavor and held texture in the cake 😄
My aunt (now deceased) made the best fruitcake I've ever tasted. She started 6 weeks before Christmas so she could baste the cakes with black currant wine. The wine created a sugary glaze on top of the cake and inside everything was moist. She was known for her fruit cake so of course she never gave out her recipe...shame.
I just don't understand that mentality, I mean I do but it's silly. If you're known for something that means other people appreciate it, instead of being selfish you can pass on your successes for generations by sharing your techniques. Nobody will do something the exact same as you do, so there's no reason to stress about it.
@@psychedelaholicright!! At least pick someone from the next generation and teach it to them and trust them to continue the tradition and keep the secret if you want it to be secret that badly!
I agree. You give out the recipe so people will remember you fondly.@@psychedelaholic
I got my 87 yr old grandmother’s fruitcake recipe like 8 years ago, she says it came from her own grandmother (and who knows where she got it from). Every Christmas it feels like tasting a piece of family history.
My family doesn't usually like fruitcake, but my boyfriend's grandma makes delicious fruitcake that is soaked in rum or brandy. It's the only fruitcake we really like.
I don't know if it's a specifically UK tradition but Christmas cake and a good sharp cheese makes for an excellent pairing.
Specifically North Yorkshire, according to my family! I inherited the habit from them and now confuse the midlands people around me 😂
"All of a sudden. And by sudden, I mean 200 years" -- thanks Max for making me snort my tea. Yet another fabulous video. Thanks for fruitcake. And Happy Holidays!
Oh! I'd love to see a video on the ancient date and cheese cake. That would be super interesting .
I love all the holiday recipes! Do you think you’ll ever do a video on sugar plums? That’s another Christmas treat I’d love to see a video on!
what do you think of doing a video on Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (black forest cake)? It's probably the most iconic cake to come out of Germany! It is thought that pastry chef Josef Keller was the first to make it in 1915 in Bad Godesberg. In the mid 1930s written recipes for the cake started to appear (supposedly)
On my to do list
@@TastingHistory Thank You!!!!
Even in a cake video we get a hard tack reference. The gag that just never gets old 😂
I'm picturing it's the 22nd century and every year people are putting hardtack on Max's grave stone to pay tribute.
Fantastic as always. I saw an episode of Good Eats about fruit cake years ago. Alton explained it was used as a ration bar during the crusades. It was packed with nuts and fruits for a calorie spike, and the combination of sugar, honey and being soaked (and if needed repeatedly re-soaked) in brandy helped preserve it.
Hi Max, I live in Australia where we oldies 😊typically still make fruit cake at Christmas or during the winter as an afternoon cake to eat with a cup of tea or coffee. You can make the cake moister by 1) making a boiled fruitcake instead of using the creaming method, or 2) if using the creaming method, soak the fruit overnight rather than just for a few minutes. Soak in either boiled water to start, or bring equivalent amount of orange juice (fresh or bottled) to the boil and soak the fruit in the water or juice overnight. Long soaking plumps the fruit and adds moisture to the cooked cake. You can also soak in booze of choice, but don’t boil first. I favour dark rum - Bundaberg Rum in Oz. Use the water, juice or booze in the cake mixture to moisten further if required. Love your channel. Am binge watching at the moment.
You have to age your spare cake and then try it again - even just aging it will help it get more moist even if you don't feed it with alcohol (though ginger wine is a really good choice for feeding a fruit cake!). Then, slices with butter or a really good, sharp cheese are just perfection
My mom made the best fruitcake during the holidays. Moist and not sodden with alcohol. Thankfully my sister has kept the tradition of our family’s holiday baked goods alive since my mom passed away.
That last story is really touching. It brings home the feeling that the flavors we treasure sometimes have as much to do with our personal histories as our personal tastes.
Thanks for a wonderful Christmas Season episode to remind us all of the Good Old Days. Happy Holidays to you and your family!
I have never, ever been to a wedding - as a boy in Canada or as a man in the UK - at which the wedding cake was not fruitcake. And I am *here* for it! I love the stuff. ❤
I got what you mean, but I have - two mates of mine got married a good few years ago and had a seven-tier "cheese cake", as in seven full wheels of different cheeses, all stacked up with the largest (mature cheddar) at the bottom and the smallest (Cornish yarg) at the top 😋
right, its standard, I remember there was some shock/horror that Harry and Meghan didnt have fruitcake for their wedding . Must've been bad luck LOL
My grandma kept a fruit cake in her freezer for years. Every Christmas she would take it out, eat a slice, pour some apricot brandy on it, and then put it back in the freezer 😂
Off-topic but your lighting/camera setup here is excellent! It's just the right saturation and it brings out the "pink of health" in your complexion, so to speak, as well as your eye color. Keep it up, Max! 👍
Actually it’ll be the colour correction!
“But they were all of them deceived…” that whole bit gave me a hearty LOL. I didn’t expect it to go so far! 😂 Much love to your creative efforts from a massive LOTR fan.
As a German Canadian, I have always loved a good marzipan or rum stollen. Merry Christmas, dude.
I just made 2 cups of marzipan for our Christmas cake 😊
Marzipan is freaking expensive.
Stollen is one of my favorites for Christmas, my mom used to make it as part of the holiday brunch
My dad and I like fruitcake. I even offer a service for friends, they send me their fruitcake and I dispose of it for them at no charge. I offer this service to you as well, Max. 🙃
This is why I really like you max. Your honesty. That is a rare trait and I love it. Love the history. Love watching you cook. Love your husband too. And thank you for teaching me different things. Merry Christmas. May you have a fantastic one.
Oh, eow! Thank you for appreciating us for telling you the fruit in flour trick! ❤
I make eggless fruit cakes, so soft and flavourful!
Our fruit cakes were made no later than Thanksgiving to age before Christmas. They were wrapped in cloth and put in a cake tin with a shot glass of spirits, we usually used whiskey. Every couple of days the cloth was liberally dampened with the whiskey. That solves the dry problem!🙂 Delicious memory!
My sister made a fruitcake this year, and our family tradition is that everyone who can hold a wooden spoon stirs, and you make a wish.
I never thought I would witness the combining of fruitcake and The Lord of The Rings, but here we are. Thank you, Max! Can we have a video on Lembas bread next?
I think he referenced it in the hardtack video...since lembas in-universe is basically "hard tack that miraculously tastes good because elves" I'd be curious if anyone has come up with a recipe that has the combined qualities of lasting well AND being tasty, though.
@@emilymoran9152 in universe it was made from a blessed grain taken from Valinor by the high elves to Middle Earth. 🤓
@@emilymoran9152 Since Tolkien based the concept on the Eucharist I always imagined Lembas tasting like communion wafers 😂
I love when you work the hard tack clip in. Cracks me up every time.
My favorite fruitcake recipe comes from Mount Vernon. Martha Washingtons Great cake. I soak the fruit in brandy. It is a pound cake with fruit. After it is baked I wrap in cheese cloth and sprinkle with brandy. Then wrap with plastic wrap and foil. I make it one month before the holiday.I have had many compliments on this cake.
My grandmother didn’t bake much fruit cake but she did make fruit cookies. I remember she used all kinds of “candied” fruits and black walnuts. I also remember her making a batch for my grandfather’s brother that had Bourbon sprayed on them…. I think I still have the spray bottle that she used. I remember my grandfather and I would drive about an hour away (I would drive, he would nap. I was about 8 years old) to a liquor store to buy Bourbon so no one from church would see him…. Merry Christmas! 😆
I’m team fruitcake! I got married in December and fruitcake was my wedding cake! I made it myself and it was mighty fine! It’s definitely a Christmas tradition in our house. To make it moist, use a wooden skewer to poke holes in your cake and pour rum or bourbon over it, then seal tightly. Do this once a week for 4-6 weeks. We make the cake on the weekend after Thanksgiving to have for Christmas.
I’m old enough to remember when all wedding cakes were fruitcake, at least in this part of Canada!
My mom's yearly fruitcake had a batter was much like this one, but she used a mix of dried fruits which she chopped and soaked in brandy for 2 weeks before making the cake. It packed quite the flavor punch and was very sweet.
This is how Jamie from the channel Anti-chef has learned. He started a couple of years ago with very little baking and cooking knowledge. Now, he's come soooooo so far! He ended up starting a Jamie vs Julia challenge which has taught him some of the more complex skills and it's really something to see. He has times where he's had to start over a couple of times but he never gives up!
Too be fair tho I think max already knew how too cook, unlike James. Max is no beginner chef. Definitely more on the advanced side of the spectrum. Tho cooking old dishes require a different skill
When we were growing up our father's mother would send us a homemade fruitcake every year at Christmas. She made it herself with plenty of candied cherries and nuts. She made it in an angel cake pan. It was huge.My father was a career soldier, so she was definitely following tradition.
the secret to a good fruitcake plenty of fruit and nuts .
I love your LotR references!! I'm teaching a course "Theology through Tolkien and Lewis" this year as a high school senior elective and it's the absolute best!
You know, it's always impressive to me that you're able to make videos on a very consistent basis but they still are all such high quality with so much love and detailed research put into them. Love ya', Max!
I have been "feeding" my fruitcake for the last month (every 2 weeks) with a shot of whiskey. Its going to be beautifully boozy for Christmas.
Lovely! I used amaretto I had from last year.
Now THIS is how to make a fruitcake ;3
Feeding it with cherry vodka is lovely as well.
My Uncle was a baker. He sent us a lovely fruit cake every Christmas. My mom and I loved them. My dad and the other kids wouldn't eat it. I still love it.
I only loved it means more for me!
Also the fact that most recipes you do are one and done and taste as good as they do is an incredible feat, good for you
Merry Christmas Max!! Thank you for your fun and informative videos..."always learning something". Cheers!
Fruit cakes have always been part of my family's holiday feast. Mom and Dad would make them together. During the Vietnam War, my three brothers got a fruit cake. They always had lots of volunteers to eat it. As during prohibition, we could soak the cake in lots and lots of whiskey and still ship it overseas. I drench mine in brandy 'cause I'm the only one eating it now. Breakfast: 2 mugs of coffee and 2 slices of fruit cake, Bedtime snack: large glass of milk and 2 slices of fruit cake.
I'm glad they found volunteers, I can imagine the cake doesn't keep as well in the hot and moist conditions of Vietnam.
Merry Christmas to all that celebrate
One week until the special date
A fruitcake fashioned and made by hand
A small offering of love across No Man's Land
To keep home close against the dire
To remind of a hopeful home and warming fire
Common by name but filled with wealth
This gentle Tuesday be warm, be merry and I hope in good health
Merry Christmas 🎄
And to you Boss. Thank you for everything this year and massive congratulations to all the awesome things you have seen, achieved and done 🎄@@TastingHistory
Awe, you guys made me cry happy tears! God bless and Merry Christmas 🎁🎄!
@@teesiemom Auwww! A very Merry Christmas to you 🎁🎄🌟
I learned from my mother how to make boiled fruit cake where you boil a packet of mixed fruit with citrus rind , glace cherries and angelica, mixed nuts, spices, butter, brown sugar and bicarb soda in a cup of water for 15 minutes. Once cooled, add a couple of eggs and a cup each of plain flour and self-raising flour then bake for 1 - 1&1/2 hours. Always moist and delicious!
Serve it warm with lots of butter on one side. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Max, Jose and all the kitties. Thx for doing this, filming it and sharing it with us 👍👍👍👍👍
"The hardtack of cakes"...love it! As an avid student of the Civil War I have read soldier's diaries and they often included requests to send goodies to supplement their rations (one of my favorites requests, from a New York cavalryman, was for "Balonney Sausage.") Dried fruit was a commonly requested item. Of course in an era without refrigeration a cake that would keep indefinitely was a good thing! I also conjecture that a soldier could break up the cake and make a Christmas pudding out of it! (I recall reading an account of a soldier taking "sultanas" from a package from home, and mixing it with sugar and pounded up hardtack to make a Christmas pudding, so I suspect this was done as well.)
I would love to see a episode of the Sumerian or Greek 'cakes' you mentioned in this episode if there is any way of knowing what they were made of and how
Now I'm seriously curious of the much ancient much different cakes you mentioned! As usual cute and informative like very few food channels
Happy holidays ❤️❤️❤️
Lovely episode. I hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year Max. I hope you make some Swedish dishes the next year. There are a lot of interesting dishes in my homeland I'd love to know more about.
Fruitcake is an extremely popular Christmas and New Years treat here in Scotland. We also enjoy varieties such as black bun (fruit cake encased in pastry) and cherry madeira cake.
Don’t forget the almond covered Dundee cake. I’m there now and can’t wait to get one.
I'm starting to see why Scotland has a bit of an obesity problem! 😅
Fried Mars bars and our notion of breakfast certainly don’t help either lol
Dinnae forget about Clootie Dumpling!
@@erikdalna211love Dundee cake