Fruitcake with Truman Capote

On the third day of Christmas the Lit Kitch gave to me…

It’s the Lit Kitch twelve days of Christmas and today we are making fruitcake inspired by one of Truman Capote’s short stories. First of all, let me apologize for such a delay in posting. Between my Grandpa’s funeral and the Thanksgiving holiday I haven’t had a lot of time or energy. And you know what requires A LOT of time and energy? Fruitcake!

Seriously, this one is a bit of a commitment. The length of the ingredient list should be a pretty clear indication of that. Between chopping all of the fruit and letting it soak in rum for 24 hours, this is not the recipe for a casual Sunday afternoon. However, if you have the time and the motivation, this fruitcake is far superior to the store-bought versions that nobody seems to like.

I have never made fruitcake before, and since it is a somewhat complicated process I used this recipe from A Beautiful Plate. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me first introduce the story behind the fruitcake.

Fruitcake and Friendship

“It’s always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: ‘It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.'”

“A Christmas Memory”

The friend Capote refers to is his cousin, Miss Sook, whom he considers his best friend, despite a sixty year age difference. Capote, who Miss Sook calls Buddy, is seven years old and living in Alabama with relatives, including Miss Sook. Despite the age difference, Miss Sook has retained a childlike enthusiasm and is Buddy’s cherished companion.

“A Christmas Memory” is a heart-warming story of Buddy and Miss Sook’s efforts to gather all of the supplies and bake thirty fruitcakes to send to all of their acquaintances–not a simple feat considering the effort it took me just to make two fruitcakes. It is a really lovely story full of humor and touching moments, and it is very apparent how much of an impact this cousin made on Capote’s outlook on life. You can easily read this collection of short stories, which also includes “One Christmas” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor”, in one sitting. Which is a good thing because you will need all that extra time to make these fruitcakes.

The Recipe

As I said, I used this recipe from A Beautiful Plate. The ingredients used here are not an exact match to those Capote lists in the story:

“Cherries and citron, ginger and vanilla and canned Hawaiian pineapple, rinds and raisins and walnuts and whiskey and oh, so much flour, butter, so many eggs, spices, flavorings: why we’ll need a pony to pull the buggy home.”

“A Christmas Memory”

It certainly does call for plenty of eggs and flour and spices. It includes cherries and ginger and raisins and rinds. But instead of whiskey we’re using rum, and rather than walnuts we’re including almonds. All things that I believe you could easily substitute. The recipe itself is open to different types of fruit depending on personal preference and what is available. I was unable to find some of the dried fruit unsweetened, and went with reduced sugar instead. This did not seem to make a huge difference.

I did choose to include the optional chocolate chips. However, as you can tell as soon as you slice it, this fruitcake has a lot going on, and I don’t think the chocolate chips would be missed.

The best thing about this fruitcake, as it is so dense, is how long it lasts. Wrap it in a cheesecloth soaked in either triple sec or sherry, and keep it in the fridge. It is not even recommended to eat it until it has sat at least a week! After that you can re-soak the cheesecloth once a week and keep it for several weeks.

I hope you all enjoy Capote’s heart-warming short story, and to anyone motivated enough to attempt thirty fruitcakes: good luck!