If any readers are not familiar with the awesomeness that is the White Trash Motherlode book, I encourage you to go here
As I was busily making Holiday Granola, chopping “good” dried fruit, like apricots, cherries and blueberries, my mind wandered to the dark side. You know, the side where the “bad” dried fruit hangs out, drinking Miller High Life and listening to The Scorpions?
“Bad” dried fruit: pineapple, figs, dates, and those neon red/green thingys that they say are cherries but whaaaaa?
Tuck into a couple of those red cherry thingys and you’ll have Red Dye #3 poisoning in no time.
And, as it often does, my mind wandered from a bad thing to a totally wrong thing.
Which happens to be fruitcake.
Wild Uncle Johnny, for some crazy reason, loved fruitcake. And he’d send one our way every Christmas. Mama would eat a piece, just so she could be honest when she thanked him. That’s Mama for you–she’d rather gag down a piece of hideousity than tell even a leeeeetle white lie. Thank God she didn’t pass that trait down to me.
Nobody else in our house would go near that neon brick of wrong. Every year, fruitcake -1 slice got hucked into the garbage. The cessation of the Gifting of the Fruitcake was the only good thing about Uncle Johnny’s death.
Luckily, giving fruitcake during the holidays has fallen rather out of favor in my neck of the woods. I don’t know anyone who makes it, which means I don’t have to pretend to eat it.
And if you are one of those freakshows like BigLittleWolf who likes fruitcake, I just shake my head at you.
Three Wrongest Things About Fruitcake:
~the aforementioned neon Alien Cherries
~the egregious waste of butter…lovely, creamy butter…totally sacrificed on the altar of bad fruit
~the directions “pour brandy over fruitcake, wrap tightly, and store in a cool, dark place for one month before eating.” Ummm, hi Salmonella! Nice to meet you. Welcome to my holiday gathering!
But, gentle readers, there is even one thing more wrong than the above list of offenses.
I give you this recipe from the White Trash Motherlode Cookbook. Not only does it have the Alien Cherries; if you look closely, you will see that this recipe contains not a drop of booze.
Assholery! Brazen Assholery! Because don’t people know that the addition of copious amounts of alcohol is the ONLY redeeming quality of fruitcake???
Enjoy this recipe. Make it for your mother-in-law or that cousin who can arm-fart Jingle Bell Rock. Good Times.
Best Fruit Cake
makes one cake in an angel-food cake pan
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 pound coconut
1/2 pound red cherries
1/2 pound green cherries
1/2 pound pineapple
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup Brazil nuts*
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Pour into a pan lined with foil or waxed paper. Bake 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
*Brazil nuts? Are you freaking kidding me? Nobody eats Brazil nuts. Just ask every bowl of mixed nuts I’ve ever served. Why do they even PUT Brazil nuts in the nut mix? I am sensing another rant coming on…
For more awesomeness on the fruitcake debate, check out BigLittleWolf’s Fruitcake Love.
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NGaxKe A round of applause for your article.Really thank you! Much obliged.