Going to the Source
No Joke. A fruitcake highlights my holiday season, and is among the best gifts I have ever received. Handmade by a friend, it’s delivered to my doorstep every year exquisitely wrapped, tied with a bow and a sprig of evergreen or berry-bearing twig just before Christmas. If you think fruitcake is a seasonal punch line or a confectionary pariah, I feel sorry for you. Clearly you’ve never tasted this one. As the saying goes, it is to die for.
Some years the cake I receive is rectangular and in others it is round. Always it’s redolent with fine cognac and a hint of exotic spices from distant lands. The surface is baked to a rich heathered bronze, nubbly with chunks of fruit and nuts that hint at delights within. It’s so rich, I eat it in small slices. But before tasting, I savor the scent; observe the lush matrix of ingredients within the cake. With more nutrients than you can count on the digits of hands and feet, it’s bursting with complex flavor notes at least as intricate as fine wine, aged cheese, craft beer, or gourmet chocolate. And the taste only gets more vibrant the longer you let it mellow tightly wrapped in the refrigerator. The best fruitcake my friend ever tasted was a year old. Despite my eagerness to have a bite, on her advice I decided to wait until at least mid January to open my prize.
