free hit counter Snacks, please!: Who you calling fruitcake??

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Who you calling fruitcake??

I've decided to enter a fruitcake in this year's county fair competition. I have never made one before... but I've looked at the different entry categories and I think this is my best bet. Or not. (Auntie Pamela argues that my competitors will have tested heirloom recipes. But I think that particular demographic is dying off and so, the competition won't be that stiff. Or it will be! haha.)

Anyhoo, here's my dilemma. Should I go with a traditional fruitcake recipe like this one, and buy super-good glaceed fruits from a fancy Internet seller? Or should I try to do something a little more contemporary -- for example, Gourmet's coffee fruitcake, or this dried cherry-almond fruitcake, or this one with marzipan and dried fruit? Marzipan!

Chocolate-orange fruitcake?
Too crazy??

Apricot-pistachio fruitcake??

Auntie Pamela (who will be multitasking with chocolate-zucchini quick bread plus her fabulous needlecraft) dug up this Southern Living recipe for a celebratory Kwanza Black Cake. Somehow I doubt it was ever served at her Mawmaw's table.

I want a ribbon! And I think it's not out of the realm of possibility. (What is??) So please advise. (I'm counting on you, Jane from Florida!) It's too late for me to get creative with the "rock people." Yes, that's really a category!

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

HA! I laughed when I started to read this entry. I think you should defy convention and enter a mango-raisin cake that you can rename mango-raisin fruitcake. It's very rich, plus has the spice cake base....I have a recipe that I can post. Let me know.....We got buyout offers today at work, so it's been a crazy day. They want to cut 22.2 percent of the newsroom.

Jane, from Florida

June 25, 2008 at 4:38 PM  
Blogger KC said...

I never quite understood fruitcakes. Perhaps it's because I've only sampled ones that taste like they were stored on some store shelf for 12 years first.

The apricot-pistachio one sounds promising.

June 26, 2008 at 4:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am for any fruitcake recipe that your loving coworkers get to sample first, followed by a Bridal Bird chocolate chip cookie chaser.

June 26, 2008 at 4:56 PM  
Blogger Pamela said...

It's strategic! And using my strategy my group won the tinker toy competition tonight because we picked the category noone else entered! Oen has to plan where they enter!

Mammaw Bea never would have had Kwanza fruit cake, but Mammaw Travis had a cook, so maybe....it is a Southern Living recipe after all.

June 26, 2008 at 8:55 PM  
Blogger Ryter said...

My mother made a fruit cocktail cake with a boiled sugar topping that was out of this world. I made it from her recipe several years ago and decided that you could probably just open a vein and pour pure cane sugar right in for the same effect. Heh. Good luck!

June 28, 2008 at 1:23 PM  

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