Here are three products that fruitcake fans might want to check out.
Jamaican fruitcake
Jamaican-born Sharon Hines-Bent’s Roswell-based Jamaican Fruit Cakery makes just one thing: fruitcakes. They’re available in three sizes, ranging from individual servings in a small jars to 9-inch cakes that serve 24. She tweaked her family’s 100-year-old recipe for these rich fruitcakes, which are so dark they’re also called “black cake.” Like British puddings, they’re steamed, not baked. The result is smooth, moist and luscious. Hines-Bent starts making cakes in January by aging ground raisins, currants, prunes and mixed citrus peel in Jamaican rum and red wine for 10 months. The rum and wine mean the cakes will keep in a cool place for several weeks, assuming they last that long.
$50 per 6-inch cake, $125 per 9-inch cake. $42 for four cake jars. Available in season at the Alpharetta Farmers Market, Alpharetta holiday market Dec. 2 and jamaicanfruitcakery.com.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Gluten-free fruitcake
Sunnyland Farms in Albany has created a gluten-free traditional fruitcake that got rave reviews from our taste testers. Each bite is full of bits of date, raisins, candied fruit and pecans, lightly bound with delicious cake. While the cake is seasoned with ground cloves, the spice level doesn’t overwhelm the fruit and nuts. Also, the pecans are impeccably fresh, as you would expect from one of Georgia’s largest pecan producers. As one of our taste testers said, “This is fruitcake that definitely won’t be regifted.”
$58 for a box of two 1-pound, 7-ounce loaves. Available at sunnylandfarms.com.
Credit: Verance Photography
Credit: Verance Photography
Fruitcake cocktail kit
The fruitcake cocktail kit from Jacksonville, Florida-based Camp Craft Cocktails combines dehydrated cherries, orange and pineapple with cloves, cinnamon, ginger and a vanilla-infused vegan sugar bar in a 1-pint jar. All you have to do is add alcohol (or hot water to make a mocktail syrup), refrigerate and wait three days. And you can use the contents twice. The first time, we used rum, to mimic our homemade fruitcake. The second time, we used apricot liqueur. Both were enjoyable just poured over an ice cube. The website has recipes for mulled-fruitcake red wine and a mocktail made with root beer.
$25 per 1-pint jar (makes eight to 16 cocktails or mocktails). Available at campcraftcocktails.com.
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