do you like eggnog and fruit cakes?

[Pandora II]

I used to hate fruitcake until I started to make my own, always thought it was horrible and dry - sounds big-headed to say this but apparently I make extremely good ones (according to a couple of people who bake cakes for a living and asked for my recipe). I make them for xmas and also made a 4 tier one for my wedding in 2008 (still have the top tier set aside for next Christmas).

I am really fussy about using the best ingredients I can buy, I also don't use currants as they go hard and bitter when they're cooked. Instead I do more sultanas. Normally I use sultanas, raisins, cherries, mixed peel, glace ginger and sometimes dried apricots or dried cranberries. All the fruit is soaked for 24 hours in a mix of fresh orange & lemon juice, brandy, rum, ginger liquor, cointreau, whisky and any other booze that seems suitable (ie no cream etc) in my cupboard.

The cake is cooked really slowly and then wrapped in paper in a tin. Every other week I take the cake out, turn it and 'feed' it a shot glass of brandy. I tend to make the cake about 6 months in advance so by the time Christmas comes it's had a lot to drink!

3 weeks before Christmas I marzipan it with an inch of home-made marzipan (can't stand the shop stuff), let it dry out for 2 weeks and then royal ice it. It is very rich, but never dry!

Eggnog - yes please!

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

No and yes.

cheers--Sharon

 

[ksinger]

Love all things eggnog-homemade is best.

My mom used to make fruitcake without the fruit- lots of nuts and brandy. That was the only one I would eat.

The people who say they hate fruitcake, clearly haven't had the right one yet. I was in that category until my neighbors (who have since moved) brought me a homemade fruitcake for Christmas. I was polite of course, but inwardly skeptical. But that first bite was an epiphany. Fine-grained, dense, moist, blonde spice batter, a whole buncha pecans, a scant handful of candied cherries - not too much - and 3 different kinds of booze in it. My mom and I used to fight over it.

In fact, I'm now inspired to contact their son, who still lives in the neighborhood, and see if he can snag me that recipe.....

Eggnog? Oh YEAH. Especially with a tot of bourbon in it....yum!

 

[lliang_chi]

Pandora, my fruit cake has dried pineapples and apples or pears in it. I also like tart cherries too. I don't booze it because my mom can't have it, so I make mine without. Never tried boozy fruit cake... how's your cake now? Still thirsty?

 

[artdecogirl]

Eggnog is nummy, I could drink a carton of it but it is soooo bad for you! When I moonlighted at the nursing home when I was in nursing school we gave eggnog to the patients that needed to gain weight! Fruitcake is not nummy.

 

[emilyalyse]

I absolutely LOVE the silk soymilk "eggnog". Finally seeing it on store shelves is one of my "It's the HOLIDAYS" tipoffs every year.

I don't do the normal kind, or the spiked version. And fruitcakes have always terrified me. I think it's akin to my aversion to Twinkies... those things just don't "go bad" like "real" food does.

 

[dragonfly411]

I used to love eggnog. One year though, I drank it until I puked. No more eggnog for me. Although Steak n Shake makes an eggnog smoothie that is .

I despise fruit cake.

 

[zipzapgirl]

Eggnog: Yes, both with and without alcohol.

Fruitcake: I think the difference is that so many fruitcakes are non-alcoholic now, or very light on the alcohol. Pandora's recipe sounds delicious. There has to be some reason that they were such a tradition in the past and I'm betting the alcohol was a key factor!

 

[autumngems]

Like eggnog but fruitcakes are seriously gross.

 

[sphenequeen]

O, i hate fruit cakes....blah.....

but eggnog on the other hand...i LOVE...i love eggnog, eggnog shakes, eggnog and brandy or rum....issue, im lactose intolerant

I LOVE eggnog... BTW, there is a product called Silk Nog that is made from soy that my husband enjoys that is lactose free!

 

[gwendolyn]

I love (and miss) egg nog. I would be quite happy to never have fruit cake again in my life.

 

[Madam Bijoux]

Love Egg Nogg. Don't love fruit cakes.

 

[Strawdermangrl]

I love me some eggnog. The 'spike-er' the better.

Not so much on the cake of fruit. I will have to pass...well, I guess that it truly depends on how much eggnog I have had and if the fruitcake is laying around. LOL.

 

[tyty333]

I'm ok with a little of both...sort of makes it feel more like the Holiday season. My Mom makes her own fruit cakes
(which I dont think will last till May ) and they're not too bad. A slim slice of fruitcake with a cup of coffee will
pretty much get me through till the next season. Same with eggnog. A small cup will do it.

 

[nytemist]

LOVE eggnog! Add some Bailey's or Southern Comfort makes it even better. When I was real young my dad would put some in a wine glass during holiday dinner so I could feel more 'grown up'.

Can'r stand fruit cake. It doesn't smell good to me at all and it made me sick the very first time I ate some as a kid.

 

[Jennifer W]

I used to hate fruitcake until I started to make my own, always thought it was horrible and dry - sounds big-headed to say this but apparently I make extremely good ones (according to a couple of people who bake cakes for a living and asked for my recipe). I make them for xmas and also made a 4 tier one for my wedding in 2008 (still have the top tier set aside for next Christmas).

I am really fussy about using the best ingredients I can buy, I also don't use currants as they go hard and bitter when they're cooked. Instead I do more sultanas. Normally I use sultanas, raisins, cherries, mixed peel, glace ginger and sometimes dried apricots or dried cranberries. All the fruit is soaked for 24 hours in a mix of fresh orange & lemon juice, brandy, rum, ginger liquor, cointreau, whisky and any other booze that seems suitable (ie no cream etc) in my cupboard.

The cake is cooked really slowly and then wrapped in paper in a tin. Every other week I take the cake out, turn it and 'feed' it a shot glass of brandy. I tend to make the cake about 6 months in advance so by the time Christmas comes it's had a lot to drink!

3 weeks before Christmas I marzipan it with an inch of home-made marzipan (can't stand the shop stuff), let it dry out for 2 weeks and then royal ice it. It is very rich, but never dry!

Eggnog - yes please!

Hey! I could have written this, right down to making my own wedding cake.

Properly made fruitcake is exceptionally good. I make two, so DH can have one for his birthday cake in January. Left to his own devices, he'd live on fruitcake and brandy.

I'd rather poke sticks in my eyes than drink eggnog though. Gross, gross, gross. And gross again.