OT I'm Lonely!!

Depends on the Fruits you put in it ! mirjam l

If it's good, not too sweet or gooey or dry - and you can warm it and have it with nice vanilla ice cream - then I like it. But, I'm not much for sweets so it can't be overdone with the candied fruit. I have had some I really liked, so....whatever that means.

ellice

Thanks for that Gill, I'll bear it in mind.

Actually, my kids would *love* that box!

Yes, fruitcake is an acquired taste. But I acquired it at a fairly young age! Long as it has lots of nuts to go with the fruits.

I also adore "mince meat" pie, which alas is rarely found these days. (And no meat in it, either, which is fine by me!)

sue

While in Canada this summer, while browsing in a secondhand/junk shop I found a "muffin"-type pan, very much like the one my mother made her mince pies in. ( Oops, ending with a preposition). I have some jars of british mincemeat in the pantry, and am thinking of making some little mince-pies. My neighbor is from Iowa, and has her kid, and his/her family coming down from Kansas City for Christmas. I thought some English mince pies would make a tasy little gift, and they can be eaten cold, since her kids want to picnic on the beach for Christmas dinner!!

Gillian

You can make mincemeat very easily now we have food processors. I have never used meat, it's all fruit and booze of course. I make it (the years I need to) late summer. Mincemeat that is a couple of years old is far better than new this year.

Note on that : I had difficulty with the suet - Canadian butchers did not seem to cut it from directly around the kidneys and it seemed different. Then a place started selling Atora from the UK and that was fine. Now because of Mad Cow that can't be imported but Atora is making a non meat suet. The first time I used it I had doubts, but it's great, makes no difference whatsoever.

Lucille wrote: snip

I'll see your ick, ack, ptui and raise you a blech, gross and yuck! I don't care what kind of batter is wrapped around it, I don't like the ingredients that make a fruitcake a fruitcake. Unless absolutely impossible to avoid, my mom taught us to just reply with good old fashioned, "No, Thank You" rather than "wasting" a piece of something when someone else is probably dying for seconds. :-) Liz from Humbug

Gill Murray wrote: snip

My sister is probably in hog heaven, she loves fruitcake & is now living in Surrey (Englefield Green, if that means anything). I'll have to remember to ask her about the fruitcake. :-) Liz from Humbug

Batter!! What batter? The mind boggles, are you going to fry the fruitcake? That's almost as disgusting a thought as the deep-fried Mars bar

I'm glad someone agrees with me. As has been said by others before me, "Who can account for tastes?"

Lucille

When they say batter over here that means the stuff that holds the fruit together, you can also refer to a sponge cake batter. It does not necessarily mean batter as in coating for frying.

Of course, if the fruit cake is being correctly made there will be very little batter involved lol I forgot the flour one year and nobody noticed.

Now that would have been a very, very rich fruit cake - interesting idea. How about Christmas Puddings in the USA - the sort made on "stir up" Sunday so that they have time to mature. Maureen makes hers towards the end of November; they look absolutely delicious, glistening on the table, and taste even better. I'm sure that you can put on weight just by looking at them.

No Christmas puds here; you can buy a small one ( I think it is Cross & Blackwells in a tin) at the grocery store . Have never tried it, because there is no way it could be like Mum's pud, that was made weeks before, and boiled in the pudding basin. I can sit and smell it right now, and it is 28 years since I had dinner at my folks house. We were returning to the US from a tour of duty in Spain, and spent the holidays in Oxfordshire en route. I remember, it snowed, and the kids were thrilled!

Gillian

It was a little too crumbly, needs flour to hold it together.

Not so many people make their own puds around here, at least, not the ones I know. My married-in kids don't care for it and prefer trifle. The best we ever had were four years old. I had made them then David was sent to sea and I went home to Japan and by the time he and I were back in the UK together, the puds were four years old. Soon as they came out from Pickfords storage I opened them up and gave them a good brandy watering. I always meant to start making them so that I could always have a four year old one each year, but the flesh was weak.

The other thing they do here is keep the pud in the freezer until they are ready to put it on the stove. I say that just keeps it in suspension and does not allow it to 'mature' as it should. If a barrel of rum was good enough to preserve Nelson, my puds aren't going to rot lol

Gill Murray ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

Wish I had known, I would have served you a pud, Ruby and Bill would not have minded, don't know about Jim of course but he would have been outnumbered anyway lol

We had an M&S rich fruit cake last year, and it was really good. We bought one from a nearby farm shop only yesterday and it looks even better - really rich and almost black (Like Mum`s Christmas cake only without the icing and marzipan) We don`t want the icing now we`re both diabetic - shouldn`t have the cake, really, but still!

I could have sent you an M&S Rich fruit cake this year, Gill, but it`s a bit late now, for Christmas!

Richard told me that they had a US Marines band over when he was stationed at Stonehouse, in Plymouth. They took them all out on the town - and had to carry nearly all of them back to the barracks, as they weren`t used to the strength of our beer!!!

Pat

Try it, you might be surprised. They taste very close to my old family recipe, and so I spend the money and save steaming up the kitchen. Of course, I always serve them with Bird's Custard, which I buy from a local International Market. BTW, what did you do to the Xmas cake to lose the icing that time? I lived in Tampa for ten years, made an authentic cake complete with marzipan and royal icing every year, and nothing ever slid off or fell apart.

Must go, it's time to get the marzipan on this year's cake. Oh and dh has banned royal icing these days - sets like concrete and he can't carve it. Nowadays I only use one egg white in it, and milk for the rest, so it is possible to cut it without a jackhammer.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Um, Bruce - Batter is what the no longer dry (with liquid in it) cake mix pre-baking is called in the States. Has nothing to do with frying - though some things are fried with a batter about them.

ellice