Fruitcake (or fruit cake or fruit bread) is a cake made with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in spirits. In the United Kingdom, certain rich versions may be iced and decorated.
Fruitcakes are typically served in celebration of weddings and Christmas. Given their rich nature, fruitcakes are most often consumed on their own, as opposed to with condiments (such as butter or cream).
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.
Fruitcakes soon proliferated all over Europe. Recipes varied greatly in different countries throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients as well as (in some instances) church regulations forbidding the use of butter, regarding the observance of fast. Pope Innocent VIII (1432–1492) finally granted the use of butter, in written permission known as the ‘Butter Letter’ or Butterbrief in 1490, giving permission to Saxony to use milk and butter in the Stollen fruitcakes.
Starting in the 16th century, 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.
Someday there will be a vaccine for Covid and we will go back to life. After church coffee hours were the best part of going to church and this Blueberry Buckle recipe by Eleanor Calvin of the Second Congregational Church of Newcastle, Maine is perfect for those.
Neapolitan Cheesecake… new from Stella Mitsak of Youngstown, Ohio. One layer is chocolate, one vanilla on a butter crust.
So, TIL that there was never an Ann Pillsbury. She was a made-up face of the Pillsbury company- much like Betty Crocker was the made-up face of the company “named” after her. There was a Stella Mitsak though. Her recipe was submitted to the Pillsbury Company and was printed in newspapers (January 1963)` and possibly in at least one of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Books (I’ll be honest, it’s late and I don’t feel like digging through my books). I’ll admit I sometimes do wonder what happened to the people whose recipes I post- a quick Google (and FamilySearch) indicates that Stella lived until she was almost 84 (dying in 2002).