Fruitcake gets a bad rap. You ask anyone from young to old and they’ll turn up their nose, proclaiming that it’s “dry” or “heavy” or that they’re scared of those neon-colored fruits. Well the times have changed and fruitcake, if made well, can be moist, a little bit boozy and incredibly tasty. At least that’s the case at Arizmendi on 9th Avenue in San Francisco.

Happy Arizmendi bakers: Erin Singer, Suet Cheng, Aeri Swendson

While it seems like many of our families avoid fruitcake, it's been around for quite some time. In fact, the name can actually be traced back as far as the Middle Ages with the oldest reference going back to Roman times where they often included pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins. Since the bread is preserved with high levels of booze, crusaders and hunters were rumored to have carried this type of cake to sustain themselves over long periods of time away from home. All of the neon-colored fruits that folks fear today came much later down the line.

At Arizmendi, you won’t see any of those dried fruits either. Instead, you’ll find small warmly-scented loaves packed with dried fruits and nuts from Rainbow Grocery across town. They use currants, lemon zest, orange zest, raisins, papaya, pineapple, apricots, almonds and cherries along with a smattering of spices like cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. If you haven’t yet tried it, this is your year. The 9th Avenue location is doing 400 small loaves and they sell out quickly, so make sure to get down there beginning the first week of December to snag yours. They’ll hold until whenever you’re ready to serve it (the brandy functions as a preserver) -- some of the staff actually hang onto their loaves year after year and come in to re-dip them during the annual fruitcake-dipping process.

The fruitcake-making process at Arizmendi

So what’s the secret? The best fruitcakes are started months in advance and dipped in liquor numerous times to allow the flavors to really mature and develop. Arizmendi began making the fruitcakes well over two months ago and they go through a three-dip cycle in brandy. First, the staff spends time cutting up all of the dried fruits, making the dough, and folding it all together. Suet Cheng says, “It’s mostly fruit and just enough batter to hold it altogether." Baker Erin Singer confirms that it’s almost like a scone dough, packed with so many fruits and nuts that it's really barely held together. After all of the dry ingredients are combined, it’s baked and they allow it to cool for 10-20 minutes. While it’s warm they do the first soak in brandy.

Sneaking a taste of Arizmendi's fruitcake

The first soak is the longest, meaning they allow each loaf to hang out for 4-5 minutes in the tub of brandy. Erin says, “they soak it up like crazy the first time around.” The subsequent soakings are for a shorter amount of time, usually 1-2 minutes. After soaking, the bakers wrap the loaves in cheesecloth and plastic wrap and store them for a month. When it’s time to re-dip, they take off the plastic and re-dip with the cheesecloth still on.

I had the chance to try the fruitcake after its last dipping and it was boozier than it will be when you buy it because it was straight out of the brandy. Chatting with the head baker over a cup of coffee and a small slice, I told her how it was the best fruitcake I'd ever had. In fact, I didn't realize fruitcake could be this good. If you could compare the flavor to a color, it’d be the deepest amber imaginable: intensely warm yet simultaneously dark and boozy and packed with chunks of fruit and nuts. And they’re heavy! With each soaking they take on more and more of the liquid making them incredibly moist and dense but in a wonderful-with-coffee way, not a like-a-rock way.

Sure, people do it differently. And it’s been done for hundreds of years which is why, I think, I’m so drawn to fruitcake. The thought that grandmothers and farm hands were dipping fruitcakes in much the same way that I experienced on this sunny San Francisco morning seems important to me. It’s a continuation of a holiday tradition that holds a lot of meaning for some, and little for others. If it’s not part of your cultural or family tradition, I encourage you to make some changes this year. I sure am.

Get Your Fruitcake:
Fruitcakes will go on sale the first week of December and you can call and order one/reserve or just walk in and pick one up. The earlier, the better; they do sell out. Each fruitcake is $14.

Arizmendi Bakery
1331 9th Avenue (between Irving and Judah)
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415)566-3117

Hours:
Tuesday-Friday: 7am-7pm
Saturday-Sunday: 7:30am-6pm
Monday: CLOSED

We've all heard horror stories about rock-hard fruitcakes. They're supposedly the favored gift to "re-gift," can last for years, and are hockey-puck textured. According to the late Johnny Carson, "The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other."

I thought this all more legend than reality, however, as I had never actually tasted one in person until recently. This could be because I'm Italian and my people don't make traditional fruitcakes (we instead eat the divine panetone), or maybe people just don't give each other fruitcakes anymore. Whatever the case, I was out of the loop until I purchased one in Scotland a couple of months ago.

While visiting the gift shop at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh -- I spied some traditional British fruitcakes and thought it would be fun to bring one home to share with my mom over the holidays. When I asked the cashier if it would last until December, he laughed and said "Definitely." Thinking his droll response had more to do with the reputation fruitcake has than the actual merit of the one I sat on the counter, I spent 5 pounds on it (that's $10 US bucks) and packed it up in my suitcase. When we got home, I stuck it in the fridge, all bundled up in its shrink wrap niceties, until the holiday season arrived. Then, on Christmas Eve, my mom and I made a hot pot of tea while it stormed outside, and sat down to our plate of authentic English fruitcake.

After one bite, our eyes met as we mutually realized the obvious: if this fruitcake was an authentic representation, the stories weren't rumors. With a texture both brittle and brick-like, it was difficult to chew even the smallest bite without choking. I read the list of ingredients on the wrapper and realized that this sad example of a holiday cake didn't have any alcohol in it.

Fruitcakes are traditionally aged in a cloth wrapping of alcohol for at least five weeks. The alcohol preserves the cakes, fruits, and nuts within, and keeps everything moist. I wondered what the chefs at Holyrood Palace Gift Shop were thinking when they stuck this sad use of flour, fruit and nuts in cellophane without a little brandy. Maybe it was an attempt to get more people to purchase one, although I was reminded of the old adage that when you try to please everyone, you end up making absolutely nobody happy. I began to wonder how many of these confections were made -- and aged -- without alcohol or some type of moistening agent. It seemed that in an attempt to gain a wider audience through omitting the alcohol, cooks had turned what had once been a yearly treat into an inedible burden.

My mom and I love a culinary challenge, so we jumped into action. With just a little bit of work, and about a half cup of brandy, the fruitcake became more than edible. Yes, I am here to say that a hard-as-nails, dry-as-the-desert dessert can be revived in, amazingly, less than ten minutes. Not only revived, but made moist and delicious. After "fixing" the cake, mom and I enjoyed our nice hot cup of tea and gobbled up our treat quite happily.

So if you find yourself a recipient of a fruitcake this year, please know that your only recourse is not to pass it on to another unsuspecting dupe. In just a few short minutes you can bring new life to your confection, and spend an afternoon happily nibbling away with a hot cup of tea.

How to Revive a Fruitcake
1. Place a 1/2 cup of alcohol in a sauce pan along with the zest from an orange. I used brandy, but you could also use cognac, rum, Grand Marnier, or whatever else you like.
2. With a skewer, poke numerous holes into your cake, making sure the holes go all the way through.
3. Set your cake into the sauce pan and heat it until the alcohol starts to simmer.
4. Cover and steam for a few minutes and then start spooning the sauce over the cake so it runs through the many holes you created.
5. Cover the cake in the pan for another minute and then spoon the remaining alcohol over the cake. Continue this process until most of the alcohol is absorbed.
6. Turn off the heat, cover the cake and let it sit for another five minutes.
7. Set the cake on a plate to cool and then serve with your favorite pot of tea.