Did you know that the of eating fruitcake around the holidays stemmed from Great Britain?
The traditional Christmas dessert isn’t at all similar to the candied peel and citron cakes you might think of when “fruitcake” is mentioned. Called Christmas cake or plum cake in Great Britain, the dessert dates to Roman times!
The rich fruit and nut cake is ‘fed’ with brandy or whiskey - a few spoonfuls at a time, every few days for weeks. The most important thing to note with traditional British Christmas cake is that the longer it sits in the tin and is ‘fed’ brandy over a course of these weeks, the better it is. Traditionally, you’d make this cake at least two months before Christmas, for it to mature with the ‘feeding’ of brandy. Making it later is fine as well, it simply won’t store as long as the ‘aged’ one.
Helpful hints before you start:
The Christmas cake is not usually part of Christmas dinner but is kept to be offered at tea time and for snacks during the holidays.