Going a Little Nuts for Fruitcake

Going a Little Nuts for Fruitcake

Chef Puts a Modern Spin on the Much-Derided Holiday Dessert

By Ralph Gardner Jr. in the Wall Street Journal

I have an embarrassing confession to make. I like fruitcake.

It’s not up there with my favorite things like candy and soda. But I don’t understand when and why it became a punch line.

I admit it doesn’t have good looks going for it, especially with that radioactive-looking candied fruit. And that it tends to be the consistency of building material. But take a bite and the taste buds react appreciatively.

Fruitcake falls into the same category as Christmas carols. You wouldn’t want to sing them the other 11 months of the year. But they hit the spot in December.

Maybe fruitcake feels the brunt of insults because a little goes an unnaturally long way. But that could also be regarded as an asset. Especially in this age of global anxiety. If they were desperate enough, a family of four could probably live off the grid through spring on a single fruitcake.

 “Some people like to keep them for months,” acknowledged Robin McKay, a friend and textile artist turned food professional, who was making fruitcakes for sale when I visited her at her home in Ghent, N.Y., on Saturday afternoon. “I don’t think there’s any set time.”

I didn’t consider it rude to ask Ms. McKay what possessed her to make fruitcake in the first place. I doubt many chefs get out of bed in the morning and say, “I think I’ll make fruitcake today!”

Ms. McKay said she embarked on her caloric, 80-proof adventure under pressure from British friends, including her British boyfriend. “I used to make trifle,” she recalled. “I’d have a line out my door from all the British ex-pats.”

One day she was talking to Ruth Reichl, the writer and former New York Times restaurant critic. “She said, ‘What are you up to?’ ” and Ms. McKay, who works for Ms. Reichl as a recipe tester, explained she was making fruitcake. “She said, ‘Do you want me to put you on my Christmas list blog?’ ”

“Baked to order of locally sourced all-organic ingredients, this is the fruitcake you’ve always longed for,” Ms. Reichl wrote. “ No red and green cherries….”

So now Ms. McKay is making fruitcake daily. “I got an immediate reaction,” she said. “The orders started to come in.”

The chef, as Ms. Reichl noted, and undoubtedly to the chagrin of some fruitcake purists, decided to forgo the maraschino cherries and other candied fruits that look like they come from another planet and give fruitcake its festive appearance.

Instead, she’s using organic ingredients—particularly dried fruit, including flame raisins, sultanas, currants, dates, figs, and apricots. There’s also candied orange and lemon peel—Ms. McKay does the curing herself—and an abundance of nuts: almonds, hazelnuts, macadamias.

And, of course, copious quantities of brandy. “There’s a cup of alcohol in each cake,” the chef boasted. “All the raisins and vine fruits are soaked in seven tablespoons of brandy. And then I add half a cup when I’m making the cake.”

Each cake takes three hours to bake and weighs in at 3 pounds. Which may not sound like a lot until you realize that it’s so dense a modest slice will fill you up, while simultaneously suffusing you with a sense of well-being.

Ms. McKay said reaction to her recipe has been extremely positive. Her boyfriend took home a cake to his mother in Cornwall, England.

Michael Albin, the Hudson, N.Y., wine merchant who supplies Ms. McKay with her brandy, and who, she said, “made the most grotesque face” when she told him the spirits’ purpose, pronounced it “the best fruitcake I’ve ever eaten,” when she returned with a slice. “He said, ‘You should name it, ‘The fruitcake you don’t have to regift.’ ”

Ms. Reichl has a fruitcake but hasn’t tried it yet. She’s customizing her cake, watering it daily, according to Ms. McKay who seems to share her mentor’s philosophy: When it comes to fruitcake it’s hard to oversaturate.

“You can brush it every third day with brandy,” the chef explained. “By the time Christmas rolls around it has a lot of alcoholic flavor to it.”

I’ll bet.

The chef offered me a slice from a fruitcake she made a month ago. I was skeptical—as much because of the healthy ingredients as its advanced age—but it tasted great. And uncharacteristically refined for a fruitcake.

And not even especially alcoholic. Though I left her home with one of Ms. McKay’s creations in hand, and after a single sample slice feeling uncharacteristically giddy. The reasons, I suspect, transcended good company or country air. The fruitcakes are available at her website Robinskitchenview.com.

“I don’t know why people wait until Christmas,” to enjoy them, Ms. McKay said. “I’m going to make these all year long.”

As delicious as her fruitcake tastes, I’m not sure that’s necessary.