The History of Fruit Cake

Fruit cakes are holiday and wedding cakes, which have a very heavy fruit content. They require special handling and baking to obtain successful results. The name fruitcake can be traced back only as far as the Middle Ages. It is formed from a combination of the Latin fructus, and the French frui or frug.

The oldest reference that can be found regarding a fruit cake dates back to Roman times. The recipe included pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins that were mixed into a barley mash. Honey, spices and preserved fruits were added during the Middle Ages. Crusaders and hunters were reported to have carried this type of cake to sustain themselves over long periods of time away from home.

In the 1400s, the British began their love affair with fruit cake when dried fruits from the Mediterranean first arrived. During the 1700s, Europeans baked fruit cake at the end of nut harvest, stored it and then ate it the following year to celebrate the beginning of the next harvest.

Between 1827 and 1901, fruit cake was extremely popular. A Victorian "Tea" would not have been complete without the addition of the fruit cake to the sweet and savory spread. Legend has it that Queen Victoria received a fruit cake for her birthday one year, and she waited for a year to eat the cake as a sign of restraint, moderation and good taste. By the end of the 19th century, the English passed laws, which restricted the use of plum cake (plum being the generic word for dried fruit at the time) for only Christmas, Easter, christenings, funerals and weddings.

Traditionally, for an English wedding feast, the top layer of the wedding cake called the "Bride's Cake" was a dark fruit cake that was removed and stored for the bridal couple to savor on their anniversaries. A separate piece of fruit cake from the groom's cake was wrapped in a wedding napkin, tied with a white ribbon and put at each guest's place at the table. Single women would place it under their pillows and dream of their own would-be-grooms.