The Marvelous and Misunderstood Fruitcake Back to Fruitcakes Menu   Americans have a love-hate relationship with fruitcake. What comes to your mind when you think of a fruitcake, is it a rich, moist cake filled with delicious fruit and nuts”, or la dried out “doorstop”? misconceptions about fruitcakes inspire many jokes, even Johnny Carson once joked, “there’s only one fruitcake in the U.S., and it’s passed around year after year from family to family. Maybe people today dislike fruitcake because so many of them are mass-produced using cheap, inferior ingredients. If you have eaten one of those dry, tasteless commercial fruitcakes made with bitter citron that are sold in supermarkets, its no doubt that any future fruitcake is looked upon with trepidation. Even the so called gourmet fruitcakes are full of preservatives and things like melon rinds colored to look like cherries. A real fruitcake is sinfully rich, studded with real fruits soaked in liquors, fresh nuts, and complex spices. The ratio of fruit to batter has always been an issue for true fruitcake connoisseur. An outstanding fruitcake can be put together in less than an hour., and it will be fondly remembered long after the last crumbs have disappeared. Commercial fruitcakes sold in supermarkets are often dry, tasteless, and made with bitter citron. Those yellow-green, candied, things called citron, a semitropical citrus fruit that looks like a huge, lumpy lemon, so its no doubt that a fruitcake is looked upon with suspicion. Even the so-called gourmet fruitcakes can be full of preservatives and things like melon rinds colored to look like cherries and these poorly made fruitcakes have given fruitcake a bad image. Fruitcakes should be moist and delicious, a cornucopia of naturally sweet (not candied!), plump pieces of dried fruit, complex spices, sometimes nuts, but not a red or green candied thing in the lot. A real fruitcake is sinfully rich, studded with real fruits soaked in liqueurs, fresh nuts, and complex spices. The ratio of fruit to batter has always been an issue for true fruitcake connoisseur, and the best fruitcake will be at least 50 percent fruit. The fruitcakes, as well as the other types of traditional English or Holiday style puddings work especially well with a pressure cooker.