I hate fruitcake. (Well, I did, but I found a way that we can be friends)

I hate fruitcake.  

Hating fruitcake is not a very festive perspective, considering many people believe it to be an essential staple of the holiday season, but I just don't understand the appeal.

Give me the sun-kissed peach pies of late summer, fresh berries doused in maple syrup, and apples tossed in sugar and cinnamon before they're roasted over a bonfire. These are the desserts I understand — but I cannot wrap my head around the idea of eating a cake that has the density of a dying sun.

I especially hate the mass-produced fruitcakes found in grocery store aisles.

Those terrible/frightful bricks are always covered in a fake buttercream, studded with radioactive green cherries, and are drier than sawdust.

To me, grocery store fruitcakes should be used as free weights or weapons, but should never, under any circumstances, be consumed.

I posed a question on Facebook to try and gauge the popularity of the ubiquitous fruitcake, and things quickly became heated. A friend from Quebec made a case for a cake that has spent months soaked in liquors.

She argued that Christmas cake is perfect for winter. It's sturdy, comforting, studded with candied fruits — just what you need for long nights and cold winds.

Others suggested that fruitcake should not be judged by flavour, but should instead be seen as a symbol of nostalgia.

After all, this is a cake with a long history and some variation of fruitcake exists in many Western European cultures. England has her plum puddings, the Italians have their panettone, and the Germans begin the holiday season with stollen, a yeasted fruitcake with ripples of marzipan throughout.

These are sound arguments, so I decided to take on the challenge of making friends with fruitcake. I wanted to work with two recipes; one steeped in history, and one steeped in flavour. Surely between the two, I could create an adaptation that would convert the most serious of fruitcake haters.

I began with Nan Hiscock's recipe.

Nan Hiscock lives in Mount Pearl and is almost 100 years old. She has been preparing boiled raisin cakes and fruitcakes for more than 80 years.

She "retired" from baking at 95, but sometimes still gets in the spirit. Her grandson Daniel sent me a copy of her recipe.

I was a little nervous about making such a beloved family recipe. For starters, the recipe called for margarine instead of butter and, for me, that is heresy. I love butter more than I love some of my relatives.

Daniel explained to me that the ingredient represents a time when families needed to be economical about everything. In Nan Hiscock's case, this Christmas cake was dessert for 11 children. I wanted to find a cake recipe that was full of history and tradition — and her cake symbolizes the proud Newfoundland tradition of yielding a lot from a little.

With some hesitation and a better understanding of the history of this recipe, I began baking Nan Hiscock's cake. To my surprise, I loved it. It was more moist than expected, easy to follow, and perfect with tea.

Next, I began a more complicated recipe based on dried fruit soaked in rum and whisky. It called for orange zest, apples, dried raisins, and apricots. The cake used 22 ingredients, required six bowls, and I drove to three different stores in order to pick up all the required spices. I was exhausted before I began, but  it was (almost) worth it. Every bite had perfect pitch.

To me, grocery store fruitcakes should be used as free weights or weapons, but should never, under any circumstances, be consumed.

Ultimately, I wanted to create a cake recipe that was simple, did not dirty too many dishes, symbolized the holidays, and was packed with flavours.

So, I added a few things that had been missing from the previous recipes and are an essential component for any holiday celebration — nuts and booze. Granted, the holidays are about good will and peace on earth, but also, the holidays are about being a bit nutty with your family and drinking booze.

Behold a fruitcake to change the mind of the fruitcakes hater. The hard sauce is optional, but as they say, 'Tis the season.'

The most perfect fruitcake recipe

Ingredients for the dry fruit mixture

2 cups dried cherries (Not the weird green ones, please)

2 cups dried cranberries

1/2 cup candied citrus peel

1 cup pine nuts

1 cup toasted walnuts

1 cup toasted pecans

1 cup port

1/2 cup bourbon

1/4 cup orange marmalade

Ingredients for the cake

1 cup butter

1.5 cups brown sugar

2 tbs grated ginger

1 tsp lemon zest

1 tsp grapefruit zest

4 tbs maple syrup

4 eggs

2.5 cups flour

2 tsp allspice

Pinch of salt

Instructions

First, toast your nuts! Toasted nuts are so much better and more flavourful than plain ol' nuts.

Next, combine all dry fruit and roasted nuts in a bowl. Add the booze! Refrigerate for 24 hours, but longer is better. I soaked mine for 48 hours. Basically, we want the fruit to absorb all the liquid.

Now pour all the fruits and nuts into a pot and bring to a boil. Keep on boiling until the fruits seem to have sucked up all the liquid, and then let cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Grease a 10-inch bundt pan, or whatever 10-inch bowl you're into.

Line it with parchment: This is a sticky cake, and you don't want your handiwork to be destroyed at the eleventh hour.

Blend the butter and sugar along with the ginger and zest for six minutes. I prefer a KitchenAid-type mixer with the paddle attachment as the ideal tool for this job, but a handheld beater will do in a pinch.

Add the maple syrup and eggs. Put those eggs in one at a time, and beat in between. The mixture should look nice and smooth at this stage. Add the remaining ingredients until well-combined, then add the fruit and nut mixture.

Pour into the mould/pan and cook for two hours or until done (ovens differ, so just keep an eye on your cake and employ that good old-fashioned common sense).

Let cool before removing from pan.

If you want to extend the life of your cake, keep it in the fridge, wrap it tight with plastic, and baste it with either port, bourbon, rum, or whisky daily ( 1/4 cup will be lots).

Hard sauce ingredients

1 cup softened butter

2 cups powdered sugar

2.5 tbs spiced rum

• Read more by Andie Bulman

Hard sauce instructions

Beat the butter in your mixer until light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar slowly ... we want it to be nice and incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Slowly drizzle in that spiced rum. Spoon into a bowl and keep at room temperature if using soon! If the meal is hours away, put the sauce in the refrigerator, but remove about an hour before use (it hardens and is super-annoying to try and loosen).

Enjoy!

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