Don’t Toss It til you’ve Tried It: This Holiday, Give a Fruitcake some Love!

December is National Fruitcake Month, and the 27th is National Fruitcake Day, so it’s high time you gave this often boozy, but always fruity, dense-as-heck bread a whirl!

What is that heavy-as-an-anvil holiday treat taking up table space at many holiday functions, church bazaars, and office parties you ask? It is the same dessert that has a 1:1 density ratio when compared to mahogany, according to Harpers Index. And it is the same holiday treat (prominently displayed at the Air and Space Museum) that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin brought to the moon and back. If you guessed fruitcake you would be correct! While it may not be the most revered holiday delicacy, the fruitcake, in one form or another, has been around for hundreds of years and has an interesting history worth pondering.

Smithsonian Magazine (Rhodes, December 21, 2010) provides a “Concise Cultural History of This Loved and Loathed Loaf”.  As described, the fruit cake as we know it today, was likely developed in western Europe as dried fruits and fruit breads became more mainstream in the diets of medieval folk.  Spicy Italian “Panpepato” or “panforte” (strong bread) was a popular early 13^th century type of fruitcake, which received its name from the large amount of pepper in the recipe.   “Stollen”, a German fruitcake made with dried fruit and covered with powdered sugar, is a traditional holiday bread that historians have traced back to the 15^th century.

Many modern variations of the fruitcake include ingredients like walnuts, almonds, pecans, apricots, dates, cherries, apples, gummi-worms, and blueberries-perhaps soaked in rum (Yum!) prior to baking.  If you’d like to try your hand at making one, here’s a “Free Range Fruitcake” Recipe from the master himself, Alton Brown, courtesy The Food Network.

If the recipe does not turn out as intended, might we suggest saving the fruitcake until after the holidays, like many adventurous folks in a small Colorado town have been doing since 1996. The Great Fruitcake Toss, held in Manitou Springs each January, began because of the massive number of fruitcakes left over from the holidays. Fruitcakes aren’t just “tossed” by hand; serious fruitcake tossers have upped the ante with catapults and air cannons. According to www.visitcos.com/fruitcake-toss, “The great fruitcake toss is the event of the winter season as the hapless dessert is launched into space with a variety of mechanical and pneumatic devices.” The competition boasts events for all ages and skill levels including: distance, accuracy, team toss, speed, best balance, and knock down the fruitcake.  You can watch a youtube video of the 2013 event here.

Perhaps it is fitting that Merriam Webster defines the fruitcake as: 1) “a rich cake containing nuts, dried or candied fruits, and spices” or 2) “a foolish, eccentric, or crazy person”.

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Photo Credit:  Elena Shashkina / Shutterstock.com