Does all fruitcake steal holiday joy? She baked one before coming to this conclusion

There is one holiday tradition from my childhood that I’ve been loath to revisit. For years I was subjected to the truly heinous task of eating fruitcake (including fruitcake turkey stuffing). Just thinking about it makes me gag.

And to be clear, by “eating” I mean taking the smallest bite possible and then wrapping the remaining fruitcake in a napkin and attempting to surreptitiously dispose of it without being caught by an adult.

The fruitcake of my youth was a gelatinous concoction, filled with unidentifiable chewy pieces that I was told were “exotic” fruits and yet tasted like gum that had been harvested from the underside of seats in a school bus. It also had a weird tang that my aunt told me was from all the booze that was used to “feed the fruitcake.”

I was haunted for years by this “feed the fruitcake” statement. Was the fruitcake a living being? Would the fruitcake that was stored in a dark corner of my grandmother’s basement gain enough power after being “fed” to kill me in my sleep? Would it shed the gross bandage it was wrapped in (I know now the bandage was cheesecloth) and then use it to strangle me?

But recently I began rethinking my position on fruitcake being a demon sent from the deepest realms of hell to steal holiday joy. It started with an article in a magazine about how fruitcakes have been updated to reflect a more modern sensibility. The mushy fruits and icky goo of fruitcakes past have been abandoned and replaced with dried fruits and a cavalcade of spices.

I did more research on the 2022 fruitcake and decided it was time for me to give this holiday classic another chance. I began by buying a fruitcake that was heralded as “the” best fruitcake on the market. I don’t know about the best, but it certainly was pricey. Based on what I paid for it, I expected no less than a religious experience at first bite.

Let’s just say I didn’t exactly get a bang for my buck in the taste bud department. This is because upon unboxing the cake I was greeted by a bevy of maraschino cherries, as well as the green candied cherry. Both of these “fruits” immediately hearkened back to my childhood fruitcake nightmares.

For the record, any edible item embedded with these candied goblins should be avoided at all cost. It’s a culinary warning that danger lurks in what lies beneath these impostor fruits.

Taking a deep breath, I persevered and tried a small piece of cake. It was unpleasantly moist and filled with the same mystery fruit that tormented me when I was 7.

I bravely decided to forge ahead and make my own fruitcake. After all, everything’s better if it’s homemade, right? This process led to many discoveries. First, I don’t earn fruitcake money. These cakes are expensive to buy and make. There were more than 26 ingredients in the recipe I used. Secondly, I felt guilty giving a fruitcake more attention than I give my spouse.

The cake was a freaking diva. I had to feed it (inject with rum) every night for two weeks, make sure its wrappings were secure and check that it seemed happy in the dark corner where it needed to “rest.”

When the cake was finally “mature” I cut a slice and I was in a word — underwhelmed. It was better than the fruitcake of my grandma’s era but in terms of cost and the time invested, it was an epic fail.

I’m sorry fruitcake but it seems I can quit you — forever.

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.

This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Does all fruitcake steal holiday joy? She baked one before coming to this conclusion."