Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Since Saturday morning was so nice and warm (high 60's F, at least), I took advantage of the opportunity to go out on my back deck and bash the heck out of a pound of frozen Brazil nuts with my trusty hammer (not a task you want to perform indoors, as I've learned to my cost, since it's not only hard on the floors or counter-tops but also results in Brazil nut shell fragments flying everywhere like shrapnel, only to be later discovered by a carelessly placed bare foot).

Why, you may ask, did I bash and thrash these harmless nuts that never attacked me until I attacked them first? There they were, sitting in their bag in my freezer, minding their own business, when they were abruptly and violently cracked open -- smashed open, in fact -- and exposed to the harsh light of day. From whence came this sudden outburst of hammer-wielding madness?

It all stems from a seasonal compulsion to bake for the holidays, I confess. And not just to bake any old sweet -- oh, no! -- but the compulsion to bake that most reviled and mocked of holiday gifts: the fruitcake!

Now before you judge me, let me explain . . .

Point A in my defense: The fruitcake recipe I use is actually good (many people voluntarily consume the finished product), consisting of whole Brazil nuts, dried apricots, dates, maraschino cherries, and candied pineapple pieces suspended in just enough moist, rich vanilla cake to hold them all together.

I've tried other, more complicated and 'fancy' recipes in years past, but none of them compare to the flavor-benefit-to-cost-in-labor-and-ingredients ratio of this easy-peasy Betty Crocker "Jeweled Fruitcake" recipe. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Alton Brown! Your so-called Free Range Fruitcake recipe might eventually result in "Good Eats", but it was anything but "quick and easy" as you'd promised and simply not worth the considerable investment of time and money required to make it according to your specifications. So, there!)

Of course, I've made certain, small modifications to the original recipe from my 1986 Betty Crocker cookbook, based on my first experience with this recipe a couple of decades ago:

1) Double the ingredients for the cake while leaving the nut and fruit amounts the same, or the end result will be a little too dry and dense, at least for my taste.

2) Cut the Brazil nuts and dates in half before adding them, rather than leaving them whole, just in case some of the nuts are discolored or going bad on the inside or a couple of the pitted dates still have some pit left.

3) Mix the cake batter and the fruit combo in separate bowls, rather than (as the recipe carelessly instructs) pouring all ingredients into one humongous mixing bowl at once and then trying to get all the dry and wet cake ingredients to come together smoothly while your mixing spoon is having to shift the extra weight of large chunks of fruit and nuts.

4) Evenly distribute the mixed fruit and nuts between three 8" tinfoil disposable loaf pans, rather than in one large loaf pan lined with aluminum foil, so that you get a nice variety and attractive distribution of colors and shapes in each pan, instead of all the dates collecting in one corner by themselves, for instance. After adding a layer of fruit and nuts to the three pans, drizzle a tiny bit of cake batter in each loaf pan (knowing ahead of time that it will not seem to be nearly enough batter, even though you doubled that part of the recipe), and be sure to have at least a little trickle of batter left to drizzle on top when you've used all the fruit mixture. The finished fruitcakes will easily separate from the flexible sides of the foil loafpans and the pans themselves will be practically clean afterwards, requiring only one brief and very gentle washing in order to be fit to re-use for more holiday baking or 2-serving lasagnas.

5) Reduce baking time to 90 minutes, since the smaller size pans mean that the middle of each cake will be thoroughly cooked before the fruit and nuts peeking through the top have a chance to get over-browned.

Point B in my defense: When I was growing up, my family always seemed to have a fruitcake in the kitchen around Christmas time (the ones I remember best were baked at a monastery as a yearly fund-raiser and given to my dad by a parishioner every year like clockwork), and even though it wasn't my favorite holiday thing to eat, I associate a brightly colored fruitcake in the fridge, or on the countertop waiting to be sliced up and eaten, with a rare sense of peace and tentative hopefulness that this time of year seemed to bring to our family.

Point C in my defense: I get a kick out of upsetting people's preconceived notions each year, when some new person is introduced to the radical concept of fruitcake being tasty and made from recognizable ingredients.

Oh, there are some folks -- like the chair of my graduate department of religion for several years --who actually like fruitcake and freely admit to it, and who greet my fruitcake with genuine glee. And yes, the thanks and ego-stroking from the fruitcake-lovers is very agreeable.

But 'preaching to the choir' is too easy. There's no 'shock and awe' factor in catering to the converted, as there is when I deviously and maliciously overturn someone's entire worldview by offering them a slice of fruitcake that looks, smells, and tastes really good, and that -- contrary to previous belief -- they'll actually enjoy eating.

Yes, I suppose that's a little bit 'evil' of me, to enjoy shocking neighbors and co-workers like that. But think of all the far more destructive ways I could be channeling my mostly-suppressed super-villain ambitions! This way, I get it out of my system by early December and can be much nicer to everyone I encounter, more in keeping with the intended spirit of the season.

Point D in my defense: As a way to head off potential mocking-without-trying of my fruitcake, I get to trot out and share the far wittier lyrics to this fun, old song, representing the antithesis of what I believe my fruitcake to be:

Miss Fogarty’s Christmas Cake by C. Frank Horn -- lyrics exactly as they appeared (with no spelling or punctuation correction on my part, though it's hard to resist!) in the original 1883 sheet music, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As I sat at my windy last evenin’,
The letterman brought unto me,
A little gilt-edg’d invitation,
Sayin’ Gilhooly come over for tea,
Sure I knew that the Fogarty’s sent it,
So I wint just for old friendship’s sake,
And the first thing they gave me to tackle,
Was a slice of Miss Fogarty’s cake. . . .

Chorus:
There was plums and prunes and cherries,
And citron and raison’s and cinnymon too,
There was nutmeg cloves and berries,
And the crust it was nail’d on with glue.
There was carroway seeds in abundance,
Sure ‘twould build up a fine stomachache,
You would kill a man twice after ‘ating a slice
Of Miss Fogarty’s Christmas cake.

Miss Mulligan wanted to taste it,
But really there wasn’t no use,
They work’d at it over an hour,
And they couldn’t get none of it loose,
‘Till Fogarty wint for the hatchet,
And Killy came in with a saw,
That cake was enough by the powers,
To paralyze any man’s jaw. . . .

Mrs. Fogarty proud as a peacock,
Kep’ smilin’ and blinkin’ away,
‘Till she fell over Flanigan’s brogans
And spill’d a whole brewin’ of tay,
“Oh, Gilhooly” she cried “you’re not ‘atin’,
Try a little bit more for my sake.”
“No, thanks Misses Fogarty,” sez I,
“But I’d like the resate* of that cake.” . . .

Maloney was took with the colic,
McNulty complain’d of his head,
McFadden laid down on the sofy
And swore that he wish’d he was dead.
Miss Daly fell down in hysterics
And there she did wriggle and shake.
While ev’ry man swore he was poison’d
Thro’ ‘atin’ Miss Fogarty’s cake. . . .

*resate = receipt = recipe, in case that one stumped you for a minute, as it did me!