Fruitcake... Why does it exist?

Definitely a question you’d ask if you’re not a fan, maybe one you’d ask even if you are a fan. Well there’s actually a lot of history behind everyone’s favourite-to-hate-on Christmas baking, and it all starts, like many things, with the Egyptians.

They used to place a fruitcake on the tombs of family and loved ones. Some say it could’ve been food for the afterlife, but if you ask me, it’s because the dead couldn’t re-gift it.

Then the Romans adopted the forsaken cake and made it their own, with recipes surviving to this day. They combined pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and barley mash to form a ring-shaped dessert. There’s also rumours that they used it as fodder for their catapults… kidding of course, nobody would do that, even to their worst enemies…

By the Middle Ages, they started adding preserved fruit, spices, and honey, and would often pass along fruitcake to crusaders. Some say that’s why most of them never returned, but still the tradition continued!

So how did it become attached to Christmas? Well you can thank the English for that! They didn’t call it fruitcake, they called it plum porridge and ate it on Christmas Eve. The recipe was a little different too, starting out as a mixture of oats and plums, then being “improved” upon by adding dried fruits, honey, and spices. That’s when it was given a new moniker, Christmas pudding. Then someone made a decision, and the oats were removed and replaced with cake… smart decision there!

It was this time in history that cheap sugar arrived in Europe, which lead to fruit preservation. That meant that people could now use exotic fruits in their fruitcake, like citrus, pineapples, dates, and pears. And do you know what works better than sugar at preserving things? Alcohol. Whiskey, brandy, rum or even cognac is “fed” into the cakes, often weeks ahead of when you plan on “eating” it. The alcohol kills any potential bacteria from forming, and actually helps to deepen it’s flavours. And the best part is, the longer you leave it, the more complex the flavours are as the preserved fruit releases tannins into the cake.

And all that brings us to today, where the great fruitcake debate has taken up the majority of the show.

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