I was on a quest for the best-tasting fruitcake for a long time. Year after year, I’ve been buying commercial and artisanal fruitcakes looking for less dough, high-quality dry fruits and nuts, moist texture, and complex flavors. Nothing impressed me. Yet, I didn’t dare to make a fruitcake myself for some reason. Every time I saw a good recipe, there was the most extended list of ingredients, and it felt intimidating. In addition to that, a good fruitcake requires weeks for flavor building and maturing, which is not my thing. I can handle hours and days, but not weeks.
Then, while working on my “Boring British Food” project, I came across several traditional British Christmas recipes. They inspired me to come up with my version f a fruitcake. My first batch was made at the beginning of December 2014. I saved two fruitcakes from that batch till Christmas for special occasions. The rest was gone pretty soon as gifts. I don’t know the exact number of cakes I’ve made that winter, but I used pounds and pounds of dry fruits and nuts and a big bottle of rum. Boy, they were good! They smelled like holidays and tasted like old magic.
