Comments on: Cake Week, Tuesday edition: pull up a chair for coffee and War Cake

By: cgeye

cgeye — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:57:26 +0000

With or without the distinctive holiday metal casing?

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:34:39 +0000

A ten-day old fruitcake also makes a great impromptu football when the blowzy bros-in-law impulsively decide to recreate the desperate ten-yard toss to the tight end–hooking in front of a stairway bannister–that won the Harbottle Industries Macaroon Freedom Bowl (r) down in Valdosta. In the pre-videotape era, I got tossed from at least a couple of post-gift-unwrapping brunches for getting mixed up in this kind of nonsense. The dogs go crazy; car alarms wail in the neighbors’ adjacent driveways; nobody remembers any of it a day or two later.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:48:26 +0000

cgeye–I agree! *Good* fruitcake is really terrific. My mother-in-law bakes dynamite Christmas cakes, which are what most Americans probably think of as a “fruitcake.”

I even like those Claxon fruitcakes you can get at the grocery store–a little heavy on the candied marischinos, but pretty good for a grocery-store pickup.

Perpetua: why make Pannettone when you can buy it and make Christmas french toast with it? Mmmmmmmmmmm. . .

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:22:52 +0000

We don’t have any holiday food traditions. Maybe this is from being midwestern? No, I’m kidding. My father’s family has a series of family desserts (usually involving instant pudding), and in my mother’s family it was all apple pie all the time. But in our house, my mother liked to experiment, so we always have different things. A few years ago, we made a buche du noel, and last year I made a wonderful sticky toffee cake which sounds very sweet but was actually a date cake that held mere hints of sweetness. That was my first kind-of-plummy Christmas cake. This year I’m toying with making my first panettone. We’ll see. I’m definitely going to candy orange rind and dip them in chocolate, though.

My mother was also born in February 1946, Historiann. No wasted time there!

By: cgeye

cgeye — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:26:13 +0000

Yes, it’s time to post this perennial link — good Fruitcake is as American as apple pie — moreso, since dried fruit of all sorts was more handy than apples….

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008350.html

By: Tenured Radical

Tenured Radical — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:31:19 +0000

I am saving bacon grease as of tomorrow morning.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:30:41 +0000

I thought it was russetts! But I’ll go with Winesaps if you say so.

By: That's Grantastic!

That's Grantastic! — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:16:45 +0000

Jo March ate Winesaps. That is all.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:17:40 +0000

I hear you, Dr. Koshary, on 1911 being like 1066. But then, I have a friend who’s roughly a contemporary whose father was a vet of the deuce, whereas my mother was born after the war. (She’s actually among the first of the baby boomers, born as she was in February of 1946, just about 10 months after VE day.)

I have a friend whose stepbrothers are about college age, and their dad is a vet of WWII! (I didn’t think there were any college students left whose parents were WWII vets, but there are!)

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:11:27 +0000

There are a number of holiday traditions. The most important is an Orange Fruit Cake, which is a fruit cake, but amazingly delicious (one is shipped across the country to my stepchildren, by request).

I also almost always bake a cookie that Fannoe Farmer calls Viennese Crescents, made with walnuts, butter, and a small bit of flour, rolled in powdered sugar.

Every few years I also do a Buche de Noel, following the NYT Craig Claiborne recipe. But that is a real commitment.

Finally, I’m often making spiced nuts, cranberry bread, etc as gifts… Chocolate truffles too.