Fruitcake is the subject of many holiday jokes but the truth is a really good fruitcake is…really good. Moist and tender, rich with fruit and sticky goodness, fruitcake is a traditional recipe that commercial bakeries have turned into a monster.

Because fruitcake, real fruitcake, is not cheap bakeries have cut back on fruit and increased batter until the stale, tasteless bricks sold as fruitcake in modern times are as removed from the real thing as fake tofu steak is from a filet mignon. 

While the oldest recipes for fruitcakes date back to Roman days and included ingredients like pomegranate seeds and pine nuts, fruitcakes as we know them became popular in England in the 1400s. By the early 1700s fruitcakes were being baked to celebrate the end of harvest time.

They were outlawed completely in the 1800s because they were considered too rich. Although these laws eased up as the century wore on there were many restrictive laws in place on the use of fruitcake or plum cake as it was also called.

Fruitcake reached its height of popularity in Victorian times when a tea table would not be considered complete without slices of fruitcake on the tray.

The idea of fruitcake appeals to most people. However, the commercial versions of the cake bear no resemblance to the flavorful and moist cakes of Victorian times.  The cake that follows is so moist that you can literally break a piece in half and stick it back together. It is delicious as is, or served with butter or cream cheese. It is a very dark cake because of the dates.

• 1 lb pecans
• 1 lb dates
• ½ lb candied cherries
• ½ lb candied pineapple
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ c flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 250F. Place a pan filled with water on the bottom rack. This will keep the cake moist by keeping steam in the oven.
2. Prepare a loaf pan by greasing it, lining it with waxed paper and greasing the waxed paper.
3. Cut fruit and nuts into pieces.
4. Mix the dry ingredients together and sift over the fruit. Beat the eggs well and add vanilla. Pour over the fruit and mix very well with a spoon.
5. Spoon the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes or until cake is firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Wrap in waxed paper and set aside for at least 24 hours to ripen.

An article about fruit cake would not be complete without a video or two of the fruitcake lady.  She appeared several times on the Jay Leno Show, much to the delight of the audience.  She is a true Southern lady, unpretentious and unruffled by the celebrities that she was surrounded by. 

The fruitcake lady, who was born, Edna Marie Faulk, was the Aunt of Truman Capote and helped to raise him.  She wrote several books, one of which was the famous, Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote & Sook.  This book is not oly a popular holiday story  but also has been made into a movie.

It was this book that led to her being invited to be a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in December of 2000.  She taught Jay Leno and Mel Gibson to make fruitcake and was so funny and popular that she was invited back again and again.

Eventually she was given  a segment on the show called Ask the Fruitcake Lady where viewers were invited to ask her questions and she answered them.  The questions were often sexually explicit and her answers were completely unrehearsed and often hysterically funny.

Watch the video and laugh!

Whether you love fruitcake or hate it, you owe it to yourself to read the book the the fruitcake lady wrote about herself and Truman Capote.  It is a wonderful, warm, holiday story.