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Friday, December 27, 2013

The Fruit cake and Christmas cake . . .

The Fruit cake and Christmas cake . . .
Fruit cake (or fruitcake) is a cake made with chopped candied fruit 
and/or dried fruit, nuts, and spices, and (optionally) soaked in spirits. A cake that simply has fruit in it as an ingredient can also be called a fruit cake. In the United Kingdom, certain rich versions may be iced and decorated. Fruit cakes are often served in celebration of weddings and Christmas.
But did u know that in Australia, fruit cake is consumed throughout the year, and is available at most major retail outlets. The cake is rarely eaten with icing or condiments. Fruit cake is a rich dense cake packed with dry fruits and nuts flavored with spices usually made during Christmas. In India, this is found everywhere during Christmas season, although it is also available commonly throughout the year.
The fruit cake is commonly known as a Christmas Cake in Canada and eaten during the Christmas season. Rarely is it seen during other times of the year.
A Christmas cake may be light or dark, crumbly moist to sticky-wet, spongy to heavy, leavened or unleavened, shaped round, square or oblong as whole cakes, fairy cakes, or petit fours, with marzipan, icing, glazing, dusting with icing sugar, or plain.
Christmas cake is an English tradition that began as plum porridge. People ate the porridge on Christmas Eve, using it to line their stomachs after a day of fasting. Soon dried fruit, spices and honey were added to the porridge mixture, and eventually it turned into Christmas pudding.
In the 16th century, oatmeal was removed from the original recipe, and butter, wheat flour and eggs were added. These ingredients helped hold the mixture together and in what resulted in a boiled plum cake. Richer families that had ovens began making fruit cakes with marzipan, an almond sugar paste, for Easter. For Christmas, they made a similar cake using seasonal dried fruit and spices. The spices represented the exotic eastern spices brought by the Wise Men. This cake became known as "Christmas cake."

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