I get the Fruit and Nut Ring from my aunt every year for Christmas. It's really good - not too overwhelmingly sweet, but it actually tastes like fruit, not soggy cardboard.

AAAHHHHHH Not Fruitcake!!!! RUN!!!

I can't imagine a worse idea than ordering baked goods through the mail.

Okay, I can, but really, what kind of weird mojo must they have to imbue these with in order for them still to be edible after the time span it takes to ship them out to you.

Sorry Beatrice (Kiddo?) but your chocolate rum cake looks like a black wall tire.

Gnomercy wrote:Sorry Beatrice (Kiddo?) but your chocolate rum cake looks like a black wall tire.

I was thinking the same thing! I bet it's good, but it looks like a mini car tire.

miken927 wrote:I can't imagine a worse idea than ordering baked goods through the mail.

Okay, I can, but really, what kind of weird mojo must they have to imbue these with in order for them still to be edible after the time span it takes to ship them out to you.

Fruit and nut cakes have been successfully sent via mail order for decades. Mind you, these are nothing like a delicate pastry or velvety smooth cheesecake. These heavy cakes are loaded with preserved fruits, and a bit of alcohol for good measure on some. They'll be good for weeks or more.

What I still find unforgivable about the Beatrice line of cakes is the use of HFCS -- As long as I'm paying a premium for a holiday/special occasion cake, perchance I might offer you an extra 25-50 cents to use real sugar in it?

Fruitcake! The gift designed for giving and giving and giving and giving etc.

ciabelle wrote:Fruit and nut cakes have been successfully sent via mail order for decades. Mind you, these are nothing like a delicate pastry or velvety smooth cheesecake. These heavy cakes are loaded with preserved fruits, and a bit of alcohol for good measure on some. They'll be good for weeks or more.

What I still find unforgivable about the Beatrice line of cakes is the use of HFCS -- As long as I'm paying a premium for a holiday/special occasion cake, perchance I might offer you an extra 25-50 cents to use real sugar in it?

Agree on the long life. I recently "disposed" of a section of fruitcake that I've been working on steadily for about 1.5 years. These things do not support life (in a good way).

As far as your worries about High Fructose Corn Syrup, you pay your money and you take your choice. My opinion is that those worries are unfounded and mis-placed: sucrose is two sugar molecules joined together. One of those sugars is glucose and the other is fructose. And one of the first enzymes either of these sugars will see in the cell is an isomerase that will convert the product of one into the other... Yes, I know that before this step, there are questions about how the body senses sugars and responds accordingly, and whether those responses differ based on the type of sugar.

However, the nutritionists who are portraying fructose as the root of all evil are the same ones who were doing the same thing to butter 20 years ago (remember how "beneficial" margarine was purported to be in the 80s/90s?). To some extent sugar is sugar. You will be just as adversely affected if you eat pounds of glucose or sucrose vs pounds of fructose. I think the quantity is more important than the quality - the body can handle differences between these sugars if you're only eating a bit. Yes, that means I drink no soda, even the stuff made with "real" sugar.

Maybe that's why it took me 1.5 years to eat my last fruitcake.

Bione wrote:Agree on the long life. I recently "disposed" of a section of fruitcake that I've been working on steadily for about 1.5 years. These things do not support life (in a good way).

As far as your worries about High Fructose Corn Syrup, you pay your money and you take your choice. My opinion is that those worries are unfounded and mis-placed: sucrose is two sugar molecules joined together. One of those sugars is glucose and the other is fructose. And one of the first enzymes either of these sugars will see in the cell is an isomerase that will convert the product of one into the other... Yes, I know that before this step, there are questions about how the body senses sugars and responds accordingly, and whether those responses differ based on the type of sugar.

However, the nutritionists who are portraying fructose as the root of all evil are the same ones who were doing the same thing to butter 20 years ago (remember how "beneficial" margarine was purported to be in the 80s/90s?). To some extent sugar is sugar. You will be just as adversely affected if you eat pounds of glucose or sucrose vs pounds of fructose. I think the quantity is more important than the quality - the body can handle differences between these sugars if you're only eating a bit. Yes, that means I drink no soda, even the stuff made with "real" sugar.

Maybe that's why it took me 1.5 years to eat my last fruitcake.

Just to clarify, unlike the sugar and corn commercials you see on TV that make you think high fructose corn syrup is 'just a sugar,' it's not.

Dextrose, fructose, and glucose are all monosaccharides, known as simple sugars. These sugars can combine to form more complex sugars, including the disaccharide known as sucrose, or table sugar.

HFCS is NOT a simple sugar like glucose, dextrose or fructose. It is NOT a simple sugar like cane sugar or corn sugar. HFCS is CHEAP sugar substitute made in part by corn sugar. There is no controversy or question that HFCS is bad for the body. There is no question that we'd be a healthier society without it.

There is also no question that with the billions of dollars that go to subsidize farmers that grow corn and a market that can not support that amount of corn, they had to find something to do with it. HFCS was a way for the industry to make loads of money. Let's not forget that the pharmaceutical industry spends millions of dollars a year advocating to continue subsidizing the corn farmers. Think about it... Why would they do that?

So the conversation about the different simple sugars is all fine, but don't mix words by thinking high fructose corn syrup is fructose, it simply is NOT!

miken927 wrote:I can't imagine a worse idea than ordering baked goods through the mail.

Fruitcakes are forever.
Is that a Bond movie title ?

ETA: Leno eats 125 year old fruitcake

I'm not a fruit cake fan, but these taste wonderful. I try to eat little bits to make them last longer. Unfortunately I end up gobbling them down and they're gone!! Don't think you would regret the fruit & nut cake. The alcohol preserves them very nicely!

A useless tidbit of information, just in case you were wondering...Beatrice, in this context, is in fact pronounced BeATrice rather than BEatrice. Crazy Nebraskans.