For dessert tonight, I had a slice of fruitcake from Christmas 2008.

[trackfan]

It really does last forever. It was yummy.

[struggle4progress]

1. Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give a man a fruitcake and he'll eat for years

[RZM]

2. I've never eaten fruitcake

Is it akin to the other sweetbreads (pumpkin, zucchini, etc.)? if so, I might try it this year.

[trackfan]

4. It's quite a bit different from those.

There's not a lot of flour; just enough to kind of bind everything together - dried fruits, nuts, butter, sugar, etc. It cooks at a low temperature, and for a long time, and really does become sort of a brick. Then you wrap it in cheese cloth and "feed" it with bourbon by drizzling over the chees cloth. Theoretically, it doesn't even require refrigeration, but we keep ours in there anyway. Every few months you need to feed it more bourbon.

[RZM]

5. hehee

There's something inherently awesome about food that must be 'fed bourbon' to survive :)

[MiddleFingerMom]

8. The secret to MY enjoyment of it is LOTS o' butter!!! n/t

[MiddleFingerMom]

3. Although I love foods flavored and cooked with wine...

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...I almost ALWAYS hate foods flavored or cooked with liquor.
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Every once in a while, MiddleFingerMomMom would send me a fruitcake
that was infused with Cointreau.
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Yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yummy-yum-yum-YUM!!!!!!!
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(fruitcake usually sucks)
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[trackfan]

6. I wouldn't touch a fruitcake for about the first 35 years of my life.

I couldn't (and can't) stand the flavor of candied fruit. My wife, who always liked it, finally found the recipe we use now, which is very old fashioned and only uses dried, not candied, fruit.

[Sentath]

9. I've tried the AB recipe

found here http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/free-range-fruitcake-recipe/index.html

Last time I did it was quite expensive, but I had to buy a majority of the spices. (I had just gotten out on my own, again.)

Can you convince your wife to share her recipe?

[trackfan]

10. It's from the Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis

if I remember correctly.

[Sentath]

13. Thank You

I'll get to looking.

[old mark]

7. I love really good fruitcake...it has fallen so far out of favor that it is hard to find

unless you find some home made.

mark

[Ikonoklast]

11. In my family we have a fruitcake from 1975 we send around each year.

A new person gets it every year, to hold until the next Christmas.

It is a huge honor to be selected as the new Keeper of the Fruitcake.

[applegrove]

12. Unlike most people, I love fruitcake. My brother made a gluten free carrot cake

with raisins and nuts and Drambuie that was really, really good and he is making it for Canadian thanksgiving..which is on Monday. Yummy!