I think a lot of people just won't admit that they like fruitcake. For whatever reason it has become almost a fad to not like it. I love it and the one you made looks delicious!

Fond memories. My Dad was a deliveryman for Wonder Bread /Hostess Cake back in the late 50s. Every holiday time Hostess made available their Fruit cakes in the fancy tins. Some were individually wrapped for the snack cake stands you'd find in the stores. Some were shaped as load bars and of course the tins. The tins made for a fine button holder or in my case, I learned how to play the drums on them!

I absolutely love fruitcake and I will try this recipe. Fruitcake with good Tea is my idea of heaven.

According to my older sister, our Mom would soak her fruit cake with wine. This was before I was born I suppose. I helped her make the cakes from an early age and have no recollection of any alcohol being used. I have her hand written recipe and it does not call for soaking. I adore dark, dense, rich fruit cake with a slice of "hard" cheese. My "bad" fruit cake memory is that one Christmas my aunt (Mom's sister) learned that I like fruit cake. She decided to gift me with her cake... not dark, not dense and no fruit to be found :)

I made an English Christmas pudding last year for the first time. When I finally got to try it, it was a revelation. It fruitcake but so rich an pungent and boozy. Once I adjusted my expectations, I loved it.

Just made fruitcake last night. If you aren't frying a slice of that in a pan with butter to have with coffee... you're missing out. Also, I think people associate fruitcake with the really low quality ones you can get in the store. I also think that the candied fruits really turn people off, as many of those are also very low quality. I make mine with only dried fruits soaked in bourbon. This year was cherry, cranberry, blueberry, peaches, and figs. I think folks find mine more accessible because of that.

I never liked fruitcake as a child, but now I love it. Wish my Mother was still here to show me how she made hers. I know she always used dates and grape juice instead of alcohol. Love your channel!

I use figs, dates, apricots, raisins, cranberries. Soaked in brandy for two days... Molasses, unsweetened applesauce, plenty of spices. Baked in early September, the cakes are ready at Christmas.

Me and my grandpa were the only ones who liked fruitcake when I was a kid. And every year he was given several from his workplace. He shared them with me, which was kinda special. I still love it and some years I make it myself, but the rest of my family prefers my Stollen which I always prepare to eat on Christmas morning.

We LOVE dark fruitcake! I always thought it was a Southern thing, but I see it's popular even in the Great White North! Our trick for a quick fruitcake (less than 6 months) is to cook the raisins, currants, sugars and butter together for about 10 minutes, add a cup of your liquor of choice - for us, it's Maker's Mark Bourbon - and let it sit for 3-4 days, then proceed with your bake. Sometimes we stir in the candied peel and let it soak, too. We bake it in a tube pan, and store it wrapped in muslin in a large metal tin. A good shot of bourbon or sherry every week or so will keep it nice and moist.

Never seen it made with strawberry jam, interesting.

I love fruitcake. My mom makes them every year. Only about half our family eats them. It is one of the best breakfasts to have a slice of fruitcake! I usually wrap in plastic and then in foil, and my son always jokes that it is the fake burrito trying to trick him in the fridge. The best is if a few get lost in the fridge from last year, and you find them in about July. Makes me so happy!

Looks delicious. My moms was similar and i like that you mince the fruit smaller, she did too. You can separate the eggs and whip up the whites and fold them in after the yolks are in the batter, it helps fluff up the cake. Hers were always in a loaf pan lined with buttered brown paper and baked in a low oven. It's been years since I made it but I still love it.

Absolutely love fruitcake - the curse of heritage Scottish , English and French. It doesn’t remain around for too long in this house.

I'm watching this in May 2020. It's hot here in Ohio - about 78 degrees F, and very humid. This video makes me wish it were Christmas! I've never had a homemade fruitcake, but oh gosh I love fruitcake!! My favorite comes from a mall order catalog called Figi's, but I'm giving this recipe a try this year! 💙

I love fruit cake. Homemade ... especially my moms and my mother in laws. Both delicious both with different fruit mixes.

I just love it !!!!!!! and I remember my English Mum saying you have to have a piece at Christmas for luck and happiness..................Now I am old and live alone but I always try to get some ... usually Paxtons? I think it is called.................lovely memories of this cake.

Love a good fruitcake. Fond memories of my Mom assembling ingredients and making around Thanksgiving time so they would be well aged by Christmas time.

Well, late to the party as usual, I'm just now seeing this video about fruitcake. Everyone in my family loves it and I think it is because we grew up with a mom who made it from scratch and the 'aura' about fruitcake was one of it being special and a 'treat'. The weekly Brandy soaking was a ritual not to be missed as it added to the fruitcake mystique! Now that I'm pushing 60, I make my own, but prefer a lighter color. I've tweaked the fruits as I don't care for raisins, so add cranberries and dried apricot along with dried cherries, candied cherries and dates. And, toasted pecans, of course. I also started adding a bit of orange zest which is nice. I make mine in small 'mini' aluminum pans so I can gift some to my parents and take to family parties. I add the orange zest to the last couple of loaves only since not everyone might be a fan of that. Oh, and I've also used Vanilla Rum for the soaking which turned out fantastic!

Sorry Glen - I'm another lover of fruit cake! I believe that it's our wimpy modern North American tastebuds. Heck, they process swiss and cheddar cheeses to take out the real flavors. Look at pfefferkuchen from Germany- it ain't the supermarket gingerbread everyone buys. I WILL be making this just need to hit Bulk Barn next week! Super thanks for this treasure!

Also, if you loved the differences between this style of fruit cake and the light fruit cake you had before, there is a middle ground: A Welsh cake called Bara Brith, it's a little more 'bready' than either of these cakes, but full of spices and fruit in a similar way. Since it is similar to a fruit bread, it can be enjoyed more with a nice salted butter while fresh out of the oven. The difference with Bara Brith is a tea soak, which provides an amazing depth of flavour simply not present in either of these cakes.

I grew up with Christmas Cake every year. My Mum (also english) said we had to eat a piece for happiness . I loved it and now I am old and alone also so I buy Paxtons dark. I guess alot of us Canadians have that tradition. Thanks for this video..... it brought back lots of memories for me.

so rich and full of fruit, it reminds me Panforte.

I love fruit cake since my childhood! My aunt used to make fruit cake for Christmas and I loved it! My children and hubby doesn't like fruit cake at all! I will try your recipe! Thanks for sharing!

LOL, I knew a couple of people years ago who literally sent the *same* store bought fruit back and forth for years... one received it as a gift, then he saved it til the next year & sent it back... then their gift exchange continued for years 😉 I've had homemade before and it actually was not bad. I think the dislike of fruit cake is people's experience with mass produced store bought ones from the 70's... dry, sense & overloaded with the red and green candied maraschino cherries.

Hi Glen and Julie!! Thanks for the video. I LOVE fruitcake, always have... I was lucky enough to have a friend who's mom would make the best light and dark fruitcakes... she would make it every year for her large Quebecois family....alas, she passed away and HE inherited the recipes and only he... he is not really a baker and asked from my help as I used to work as a chef... and I got copies of the recipes... with the proviso I do not share... (grin)... The recipes are named after 2 different women, 'Peggy' and Mrs. Newcastle... neither of which my friend knows... Your cake looks great.. but it is missing 1 big ingredient for me.. candied citron, the thing most people who don't like fruitcake probably have an issue with but I LOVE.... hehehe... I make mine in loaves.. 3 loaves per recipes so make 2 light and 2 dark so 6 loaves and I gift him 3 of the light and one dark. His family prefers the light so he mails them to his family back in Quebec... (we live in BC)... I also love switching up the alcohols... cherry brandy works great with the dark, as well as regular brandy and dark rum, as you said. I have used rye and coconut rum and the regular brandy on the light cake, as it has large flake coconut in it as well. All of them are great. I do the cheesecloth and plastic wrap, but then also do a foil wrap, several times over... and then each goes in a ziplock bag. They remain out of the fridge for the first 2 weeks, then in the fridge for the remainder. To rebooze them.. I got tired of undoing all the wrappings so I get a large hypodermic needle, and use about 7CC of booze of choice and squirt it through all the wrappings going about halfway into the cake in 5 locations... near each corner of the loaf and one in the middle. Then back in the bag and back in the fridge.. no mess, no hassles... and a great boozy moist but not soggy cake... I would do this about once between baking in early October and xmas. Freezes exceptionally well, as all fruitcakes basically do. This last year was the first one in a long time when I did not make them but will be doing them again this year. I made a boiled fruit cake this year due to lack of time... it was very good too, but not quite the same thing. Thanks for all your very cool videos.. love the homemade things like the vinegars, sauces, etc... not the normal stuff which is great, LOVE the old cookbook vids, the brewing vids... actually all of it.. hehehe... the only ones I personally don't care for are the 'best of youtube' ones... but I understand why you do them... hehehe... I like the more obscure I guess... I also saw recently that you are trying to get more lentil/pulse/legume recipes into your repertoire... I am Greek descent, and my mom was an excellent cook... I am willing to share my greek lentil soup recipe, fakies, (with an egyptian version as a bonus, or greek bean soup, fasolada... let me know if you would like to try them. Thx again... Keep up the EXCELLENT job...!!

i have always loved Fruit Cake and my Mom thankfully showed me how she made hers before she past on. i still make it every so often. her last cake she made the charismas before she pasted, savvied 2 years of slow eating and lots of preservatives [ Brandy ] in the fridge. thank you for your basely amazing show.

Love fruitcake, but don't like the candied cherries, so I sub with dried, and use dried blueberries and cranberries as well.

I discovered last year that I Love fruitcake! I even really enjoy the store-bought stuff with marzipan on top!

It's interesting to see how the production of the show has evolved over time. This was a KZfaq suggestion and now I want fruitcake 😂

I love fruit cake. Dark rum, no nuts, lots of candied peel. I also love cheap a$$ store bought, dry as a desert. Dried fruit , rum, yum

I have always loved my Grandmother’s Fruit Cake!! She used to have them stored in the cellar for YEARS!! Even better with a little age!

I absolutely LOVE fruitcake. My grandmother would make it each Christmas. It was black. Delicious.

Love it. My wife makes a similar recipe with Dark Rum we like to serve it with a drizzle of rum on each piece and a slice of sharp cheddar cheese. Amazing

Absolutely love fruit cake. My father at 81 makes me one every year. Just that mine has no nuts.

An easy recipe to follow, I used Southern Comfort instead of Brandy, And it was wonderful!

Love it.

I love fruitcake. Simply love it.

LOVE fruitcake/Christmas cake! This looks very close to the recipe my mother has used for decades; except the strawberry jam is an interesting twist, and she usually uses dark rum. We will definitely give this a try!

My mother was American and my father was British. Our Christmastide tended towards the British style and included a sturdy, rum or brandy enriched, dark fruit cake, sometimes dressed with a petticoat of marzipan with pure white royal icing as the overdress. Yum. It is traditional in places that were 'civilised' with the iron fist and velvet glove of the British Empire, to have a magnificently decorated, rich, dark fruit cake, as the wedding cake. Small slices of said cake would be packaged into elegant boxes and sent to friends and family who could not be at the wedding. These little morsels travel well around the world, delicious under the preserving influence of the brandy or rum; and Mum's family in America would always tell her the cake was stale! I dont think any one of them liked fruitcake, but they always ate the sliver they received with puzzlement, unsure of what they had consumed, but consistent in their dislike!! But for me.....I adore rich, alcohol-soaked fruitcake....delicious ❤

I love fruit cake! I will have to try this for next year, it looks amazing!

My Nana used to make fruitcake which I enjoyed as a child. Unfortunately the recipe was in her head and no one was able to learn it. Many years later I have been making it the past couple of years. I will give your recipe a try in 2020. What do I look for in a brandy, never used it before. Thanks for all you videos.

I LOVE fruitcake! We always had one at Christmas as a child and till today I love certain types. Not that cheap stuff in grocery aisles. I usually purchase one from Williams Sonoma. yum.

I absolutely love dark rich sumptuous fruit cake ... It's all about those cherries for me takes me back to being a kid eating my Aunt Sandras fruit cake who was a baker ! Another recipe am doing over the coming months 😋👍

My mother would try to make this for Christmas every year and she would start around Thanksgiving with the process! I don’t think she ever finished making one of them. Not sure why that is! Looks pretty good and I do like that dark color!

Ohhhhh yummmmm!!!! Thank you!!!!

Love it, even as a child. we lost our grandmother recipe, been looking for a close one this one is the closest but the jam was apricot and I started adding lemon. Thank you for sharing this I am going to make it.

Just came to the video after the latest video. It's great to see how far you have come on the platform. Also the presentation is much better.

love it my grandmother always made it for christmas

I LOVE FRUIT CAKE!! My sister bakes and sells the same fruit cake that I make but gotta try your's too. It is delicious when it's made right and hubby loves my fruit cake too !! Gotta try the brandy in it, sounds so yummy !!

Love it

We love fruit and christmas cake in the UK, its bloomin lovely as light as you add enough sweetness and dont burn it!

I love it!!!my cake is loved by friends and family.

Oh, you're so close! I like to candy my own citron (Buddha's hand) to add to the fruitcake mixture. It sends it OVER THE TOP!! Otherwise, this cake looks like the delicious traditional Christmas fruitcake that some people love to hate. BTW pecans also take it to another level.

2:18, looked satisfying ☺💙❤

I love fruitcake! I'll try this recipe and the one you made with the pork fat! YUM!

I like the way you put the cake in cheese cloth, thanks so much.

I adore fruitcake!

I’m one of my only siblings that really enjoy fruitcake and my family members that would always make it used specifically the store bought candied fruit but when I recently made it this past Christmas I was down here in Texas and could not find any of that and I resorted to drying my own fruit And I found that gave yet a less overwhelmingly sweet taste but I think attributed to a better overall product. I’ve course still had to have the look of the cherries so I did dry some maraschino cherries and found that worked pretty OK with reserving the colorful cross sections along with dehydrating some other colorful fruits like Keewee to remain festive!

I love fruitcake !!

I've never tried it and now I really want to

I didn't like fruitcake until I had a good one. I think I'll have to make one now!

I love a good homemade fruitcake. Only way to go.

I love fruitcake. I don't use alcohol when baking, but after it's cooled I take a fork and poke holes in the top and cover with bourbon. Nice and moist and after a few pieces I get buzzed.

I love it........a lot.

I have always loved the fruitcakes you could buy in the store. I used to eat like 3 every season, my own guilty pleasure. That stopped maybe 2-3 years ago, unable to eat a full fruitcake. I've never had a homemade one.

I haven't had it in so long, I'd have to try it again to see if I like it more than I did as a kid. I remember it being ok, lol.

Love it, Fruit is my treat. I do not make it, I buy one famous from here in Texas. But the one from Georgia is also good. I like them both.

Thanks for shareing

I LOVE FRUIT CAKE!!!

I love fruitcake in all its many, delicious forms. Various dried fruits, different alcohols (or juices), with or without nuts, light or dark cake...

I love fruit cake!! Just to clarify...my Grandmother’s fruit cake! The older the better. She had some she stored in her basement cellar for years! To this day it’s not really Christmas until we’ve had fruit cake.

I love fruitcake!

Every single fruitcake I tried as a kid was disgustingly sweet (even as a kid!) and I never enjoyed how dense the fruitcakes were. Thanks to those experiences I have been fruitcake-sober for at least 25 years and intend to stay that way.

My Grandmas dark fruit cake has dates and raisins which are boiled together with water and sugar, cool the mix add butter and eggs then the flour, spices, fruit and nuts. I love the big pieces of dates and big pieces of pineapple. Soak it in rum or brandy for a couple of months if possible. I have actually gotten a bit tipsy. In the last few years she did make a few mistakes like soaking it in Tequila. I don't recommend! oh how I miss her and all her holiday baking. Like the idea of soaking the fruit might have to try that next year.

I love a good fruit cake

👍 I love it. Only made it a few times, not hard to do but pretty expensive, considering.

As a teen the A&P grocery store sold their in house fruitcake,Ann Page, after Xmas the price was reduced, I would buy 2-3 of them,lucky they would last for 4-6 months. Bummer that A&P isn't around anymore,theirs was the best fruitcake I ever had,all natural, nothing artificial.

I didn't even know that there were people who: a) did not make their own fruitcake and b) disliked them. My mama was English and she did it the way her mother did. Have it baked by Guy Fawkes Day (5 November), wrap it in cheesecloth and put into a slightly larger glass pan, then dose it with brandy once or twice a week until Christmas. By the time she served it, it was probably 70 proof! Just kidding but not much of an exaggeration, we poured on two bottles of brandy. At least. Having 3 eager children pouring the brandy on from the bottle meant that it may have gotten a heavier than average dose of brandy. It was dark, moist, rich and the brandy balanced out the sweetness. I look back to my 6 year old child self and I'm no longer surprised that we children all fell asleep right after Christmas dinner. I suppose parents these days would get a big dose of side-eye if they admitted feeding their children such a food but it doesn't seem to have hurt any of us. The cake was a once a year treat and it didn't apparently cause any of us to want alcohol at other times.

It looks very similar to the recipe used by the Trappist Monks. They are the reason that I love fruit cake so much! Maybe for a future video you could try to replicate Trappist Monk fruit cake. Wonderful video - it was a joy to watch (and salivate!!!!!)

I love a good fruit cake. One of the best is from Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana , Texas

My favorite fruitcake is made in Corsicana Tx.

We used to make this cake every year when I was a child but when it came to the icing Mom loves almond icing (Marzipan) and dad hated it so she would put Marzipan on half of the cake and royal icing on the whole cake!! And the decorations denoted where the Marzipan was also dad liked it eaten with a thick slice of good cheddar and a glass of port

LOL: my grandparents bought Claxton Cake as a holiday tradition. I didn't really like them but I ate them nonetheless, not wanting to appear rude. So every year my Grandmother would buy me a Claxton Cake, thinking that I liked them. So now, as a senior, I love them! My favorite gift every year is when my baby sister buys me a Claxton cake (clone).

my family always makes fruitcake with just dried fruits, not the candied ones, and we pour some rum on it once a week between thanksgiving(US) and christmas. Also we like to eat it w/ some plain cream cheese spread on each slice. idk how common that is.

I think many people are turned off by dry, commercial fruitcakes, but a moist, brandy- or rum-soaked one is delicious. People just won't give it a chance.

I love fruitcake, but it has to be really good fruitcake. I knew an elderly woman who made the best, I could eat a whole one by myself, but I could never get her recipe.

I made fruitcake in March one year. My husband made all kinds of jokes about the seven deadly fruitcakes that roamed the world year after year, being sent from one person to the other ad infinitum... every month the fruitcake came out to be wet down with brandy, wine or rum. Every month I heard the jokes. I cut the cake on my birthday in December. It lasted two days. He said it was much better than store bought fruitcakes.

I love and am still eating Xmas leftovers

I love fruit cake . I like to serve warm with hard sauce.

I know this video is a couple years old but I just found it. I grew up with Christmas cake aka fruit cake and we love it. nan would bake it in loaf pans and pour the rum or brandy on it after removing it from the oven and wrap up each pan and store them away in the cooler... they were so boozey we teased her she was going to get all the family tipsy... I still to this day make a variation of her cake. and everyone loves it..

Grew up with Tomato Soup Cake as our family fruitcake. There's not as much fruit in it as many recipes call for, more like a spice cake with a fair amount of candied fruits, raisins and nuts in it. No eggs, no butter. It's great fresh, and holds up well to being boozed and put away for a month or three. Great with a cup of tea, better with a glass of milk(honest!)

One year I made chocolate fruitcake. All the good things in one loaf.

when we came to Canada and first had fruit cake our family found it way too sweet an way to unpleasantly strong tasting. However, a friend of my mother's gave her a recipe for a lighter cake using only maraschino cherries, and we liked that in small amounts. I would recommend that you use some of the flour in the recipe to coat the dried fruits before incorporating into the batter. This helps to distribute the fruit more evenly in the cake.

Taking a stab at the dark here. I know this is an old video by now so not sure you're monitoring for comments. This recipe looks amazing, and I only recently tried my first fruitcake. I want to make this for the upcoming holiday season, but 9x13 is way too much. If I use a 9x9 or 8x8 pan and halve the ingredients, would the cooking times need to be adjusted? Any suggestions if I try this?

This just popped up today. I love good fruitcake, and it's hard to find. I've tried several mail order cakes and most of them are nothing to brag about. I like the one that comes from Assumption Abbey in Missouri. Yours looks a lot like theirs. I have always wanted to make this, but by the time I shop all the ingredients, I can buy one of theirs for about half of what it would cost for me to do it myself. It's hard to source a lot of these ingredients at my local grocery store. Ordering on-line seems to not work either as you get killed in shipping. Amazon has most of the items, but their prices seem out of line for things like currants, and dried fruit.

I enjoyed the new format as a way to mix things up. Hands and pans can get a little "same-y" looking, but this was a good take on the style.

For me it was the texture and the flavors. Maybe I just haven’t found someone to make one that I’d like.

LOVE DARK RUMMY FRUITY NUTTY FRUITCAKE!!!

It was interesting to see how it is made and to learn that it can literally last for years in the fridge and freezer. We always get a fruitcake given to us by one of our aunts when she visits us at Christmastime and we thank her and act like we like it, but once she leaves we just plop into our garbage can. I think one of the main reasons we don't like it is because of all the liquor in it. None of us care for brandy or rum or anything like that.