Fake Fruitcake & Miracle on 34th Street

If given the choice, I'd rather not eat a Fruitcake. Not that I really remember what a fruitcake tastes like. Instead, whenever I think of Fruitcake I recall distant memories of a fruitcake covered in a cement-like frosting that would preserve the thing for months. My sister and I would be taunted by this thing, for we knew there was cake in the house. We could see the cake. It was right there. However, all attempts to penetrate the protective shell of the fruitcake was met with failure and disappointment.

And that is what I associate with Fruitcake: A baked fortress of unattainable desires.

So I've been avoiding fruitcake for decades, assuming all fruitcake must be like this and anything else is but a lie.

In my old age I have realized that perhaps this is definition of Fruitcake may be erroneous. And so, for our date night, I decided that the Wifey and I shall bake a fruitcake.

Step 1: Find fruitcake recipe.

In searching for a fruitcake recipe I learned the following important thing: They take time. Like, worst-case weeks of time. Apparently the ingredients require overnight soaking, and the once the cake has been baked, it itself requires days (perhaps weeks) of .. well .. hanging out, I suppose.

This is perhaps not such a bright idea for a date night. Perhaps if we had Date Month we could do this, but Date Night, of which we only have a few hours? Uhm.

Well, no matter, a quick google search for the relevant terms and we found the Quick Fruitcake Recipe! Now, let's be fair .. this is not so much Fruitcake as much as it is Fruitcake-mix-in-Bread. In essence, much more like bread than cake.

But, it will do.

Step 2: Make Fruitcake

Well, this was the easy part. The short end of it is: Make bread-dough, mix in fruitcake stuff, bake. Ta-da!

Took all of an hour or two, and the thing was done. Fabulous.

Step 3: Eat "Fruitcake"

And .. it turns out it wasn't half bad! I actually quite liked it! Wifey wasn't particularly enthused but claimed that it was "growing on her."

That is, until she decided to put a glaze on it. I'm not sure what kind of glaze it was, but the "Fruitcake" definitely stopped growing on her after that.

I'm not entirely sure what happened to the rest of the "Fruitcake." I suspect it went to that Special Place in the sky where all other abandoned Fruitcakes go.

The rest of our date night was spent watching Miracle on 34th Street, which was kinda cute and endearing! It was also interesting to see that people were very concerned about the commercialization of Christmas even back then. Sometimes we think our problems are unique to us and our time, and we don't necessarily realize that, no, people 75 years ago struggled with the same issues. Sad, too, that nothing much has changed either.

Anyway.. on to the next date night planning!

Hubby