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Fruitcake
Fruitcake is a cake made of dried fruits and optionally candied fruit, spices and nuts that may be soaked in brandy or rum, the richest versions (possibly iced) often being used in the celebration of weddings and Christmas.
History
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash.
In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added and the name fruitcake was first used, from a combination of the Latin fructus, and French frui or frug.
Starting in the 16th century, inexpensive sugar from the American Colonies, and the discovery that high concentrations of sugar could preserve fruits, created an excess of candied fruit, thus making fruitcakes more affordable and popular
In the 18th century, Europeans were baking fruitcakes using nuts from the harvest for good luck in the following year. The cake was saved and eaten before the harvest of the next year, so it was about a year old when eaten. Fruitcakes proliferated until a law restricted them to Christmas, weddings, and a few other holidays because they were considered "sinfully" rich. Even so, the fruitcake remained popular at Victorian Teas in England throughout the 19th century.
In the USA
Mail-order fruitcakes in America began in 1913. Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas, and The Claxton Bakery in Claxton, Georgia are famous American makers of fruitcake. Both Colin Street and Claxton are southern companies with access to cheap nuts, for which the expression "nutty as a fruitcake" was derived in 1935.
Most American mass-produced fruitcakes are alcohol free, but traditional recipes are saturated with liqueurs or brandy, and covered in powdered sugar, both of which prevent mold. Brandy or wine-soaked linens can be used to store the fruitcakes, and some people feel fruitcakes improve with age.
Countless other examples of fruitcake references exist in comedy acts, movies, TV shows and other forms of popular culture which are too indiscriminate to list for the scope of this article.
Christmas Cake
The Christmas cake is a more recent tradition that people have at Christmas festivities, it dates back only to the middle of the 19th century. It was developed from the plum pudding, but, the contents were merely modified so that instead of being like a pudding they would become solid.
The Stollen
The Stollen is of German origin. It is a kind of sweet bread, enriched with a variety of dried fruits and nuts and covered with icing sugar. Families and bakeries originally treasured their special recipes for this dish that they baked and would under no circumstances reveal their secret ingredients. The Stollen is suppose to symbolise the baby Jesus Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes. The word itself refers to its shape which is rather like a 'post' or a short 'prop'.
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